The legendary techno duo Pig&Dan marks their twentieth anniversary with an immense, twenty-track album.
Delivering some of the duo’s most forward-thinking techno productions date – and a track to mark each year of their musical journey – 20 Years: Pig&Dan is a remarkable opus of intelligent, cutting edge dance music from two artists who came together back in 2002 to form what would become one of the most prolific and globally revered acts in electronic music.
Unyielding in their commitment to originality, eclecticism and tradition, the album will feature an array of brand new Pig&Dan productions, alongside a selection of new ‘2022 versions’ of some of the duo’s most celebrated anthems from the last two decades.
We are very delighted to interview Pig&Dan about this massive release and get an insight about their career.
How does it feel to sum up 20 years of your Pig&Dan project together?
Honestly it’s a massive honour for us to have lasted so long in what is a very competitive industry!! Also a little shocking because time flies when you’re having fun, so to reflect on this as a 20-year journey is really something to take in. I mean it’s a huge milestone for us on so many levels. We’ve been able to play some of the world’s best events and at places we used to go as ravers looking at the DJ booth thinking I want to be the conductor of what’s happening here one day. To accomplish such things is something we are so damn grateful for!!
How did you meet and brought to life this amazing project?
We met on a plane when I (Dan) was talking with the person beside me about me being a Drum&Bass DJ and Pig was behind me and mentioned he was also a DJ. Two years later we then crossed paths again finally thought we need to try something together as fate brought us together twice. We clicked, we found we had synergy and the rest was history.
What was your breakthrough track? The one that made the change and brought you international recognition?
I don’t think it was a track in particular, we very much built a repertoire that I guess connected with people over time and put out tracks that sold well on the whole. The turning point was for sure when we started working with Cocoon and Sven Vath who really helped us gain recognition. When remixing “Der Mückenschwarm” from Oliver Koletzki we found that the more techno community accepted us after a long time being more in the progressive scene. After this, we released On to the Beat which did well in the charts and then continued trying to push ourselves both with writing styles and sonically. We are not known for staying in one line musically, we are a bit chaotic hahaha.
With hundreds of tracks in your catalog, how did you tow decide what made it on the album and why?
I would say it stems from our experience as DJs and picking out what we feel completes a project on the whole. We are all about journeys but trying to stay away from being linear. Throwing in some surprises along the way is how we roll. Dynamic and euphoric is what we base most of our sets on and we feel a project like the XX years Pig&Dan is no exception. Its a ride through our ride : )
After 20 years at the studio, is there a preferable working tool (Synth/instrument/working technique ..etc) you were loyal and defined your sound stamp?
Logic Pro has been our go to, and is the root of our production because we feel its warmth is unparalleled. Synths and Plugins come and go but the core is all around Logic.
Any memorable gigs after 20 years of touring the globe?
Oh so many, for us both I would say the real signature events were playing Amnesia Ibiza (somewhere we both have such a long history with and to play there has always been the biggest of honours) Space closing party was also a huge one for us ! Ultra Buenos Aires was for sure one of the highest energy events we ever played over the years. Being a resident in Cocoon Clan Frankfurt was also so inspiring on so many levels. Richie, Ricardo, Luciano etc… all part of this family that really headed the whole scene to what it became today.
Since forming the project, you’ve seen the global dance music scene shifted, altered, and grown over the years! What do you think of these changes and their impact on the scene and its future?
Well it’s been greatly commercialised which is a good thing as far as bringing more awareness to the sound globally, but on the other side it has very much attracted the pop industry with investors pushing artists that are more social media based. Some promoters are now booking DJs based on Social media followers instead of the actual music ability, which is the complete opposite of what this scene was built on. We are all trying to pioneer and push a scene for music lovers and people who want to unite through music. Musically I think it’s an amazing scene but it’s saturated currently because people do it for money. We have never ever done this for money, purely because the first 10 years you will starve for it and you need to put in your time to learn how to manipulate a crowd psychologically and that takes time. Now people buy preplanned main stage sets to push their profiles and have others write their music which we feel is completely missing the point. We play for the people and read where they want to go, which isn’t possible if you just play a preplanned set.
What else is being cooked in the studio and what should we expect next from Pig&Dan?
Plenty of new projects on the horizon, watch this space.. WE DON’T STOP
20 Years: Pig&Dan is out now via ELEVATE.
