Having taken a slightly longwinded route into the music industry, Bader is a perfect example of what sheer determination can lead to. While he is clearly a musical maestro, his career has been born out of a passion he fell into rather than simply a product of chasing a lifelong dream. While he concedes that he is more than a little lucky to be in the position he finds himself, Bader also notes that just the same as anyone who has chased a dream, he himself has had to put in the time and effort to make it work. While it would be easy to write him off as a chancer, very few real chancers are able to brag a career of his proportion and acclaim. He points out, “It was a process to come to this point. I didn’t really decide it. Music is just what I like, what I feel…”
“When I was a child, I was listening to the records of my mum and dad.” While electronic music may have first slapped Bader across the face post-puberty and awoken with him an unstirred feeling, he reveals that music as a passion was far from a revelation. “I fell in love with Led Zeppelin and The Doors, but I also loved and still love De La Soul and EPMD.” With a real diversity of influences from an early age, Bader always trod the line between genres and the results that can now be heard clearly in his eclectic yet consistent sound. So looking back at his early years, is he able to put his finger on exactly what it was that left its mark? “A lot,” is all he initially offers. The answer is no doubt fully accurate in its delivery, but offers very little insight into how his first musical loves have worked their way into his output. With just a little nudge in the right direction, Bader is more than willing to break it down into its elements. He explains, “Led Zeppelin has this understanding to build up a track to something very hypnotic.” With the rockier element of Led Zeppelin’s sound having drawn Bader in, he learnt very simply that a track has to captivate a listener. It is a level of submission to a sound that he aims to achieve in all his works. In reference to his own music discoveries, he reveals that he also learnt a lot from those formative findings. “EPMD and De La Soul have an awesome groove in their tracks. I hope some of those grooves are carried in mine.”
Though hay have consciously incorporated a lot of his earlier musical influences into his electronic sound, it was only once he had really discovered techno that everything fell into place. While the sounds in his head warranted exploration, he had simply not stumbled across the discipline that made it all make sense. He continues, “I started to DJ 11 years ago. I came more into techno music. I bought myself a 303 Machine and some other hardware and in the year 2005, I finished my first song.” With a good seven years between his DJ debut and his first fully-fledged song, Bader reiterates the point that he hardly fell firmly on two feet into the security of a successful career. With the years between his DJ outing and his debut release put to good use (in the years between Bader established the party collective Max und Moritz with several of his friends), Bader learnt that the only way to make headway is by putting in the hard yards and experimenting. Almost instantly Bader reaped the rewards of his hard work and is now able to balance both elements of his creative career. However, when it comes to deciding between the two halves of a successful music career – those of innovator and performer – Bader proves himself to be aligned with the majority of his contemporaries within his unenlightening response. Like so many before him, Bader is unwilling to make a clear-cut choice. “Both are very interesting for me… I love to be on stage …and I love the studio work a lot.”
With his answer having revealed next to nothing about his preferred outlet, our attention turns to the live Bader experience. With the Berliner (yes, I know that this is a Kennedy-esque mistake and is actually the German word for donut!) hitting Melbourne at the end of October for Bimbo Deluxe’s Halloween & Horses, he starts our discussion about DJing with a firm promise for anyone who is planning to attend…With a rip-roaring laugh he vows to provide “fucking good music,” and if that is not enough there will be, “a nice man behind the decks!”
While that alone should be enough to entice you along to Bimbo Deluxe’s Melbourne Cup celebrations (though with local support from Jamie Stevens, Steve Ward, Danni B, Uone and Cecille – the appeal is heightened even further), Bader is more than willing to delve further into his DJing antics to entice you further.
Although he is able to summarise his approach to DJing thus, “I play what I really like and what I feel in the moment,” Bader is clearly more comfortable commenting on past experiences as opposed to raising expectancies of his crowd. Though unable to pinpoint what it is that defines a good crowd, he is more than able to select one event in particular whose crowd let more than a little mark in his memory. With a real gusto of enthusiasm, he almost shouts out his recollection, “Oh the best crowd I remember was at the Bar 25. It was very face-to-face. The people were dancing with you. A lot of people were around me – behind the DJ desk. We were a saltation bulk.” Clearly a fan of intimacy, Bader likes to feel the response and reaction of a crowd, therefore if you plan to attend Bimbo Deluxe be sure to get up close and personal.
“I really love and remember one set,” Bader continues, making the logical transition from what makes a crowd work well to the perfect set, “I was playing in the Panorama Bar. In the end I was totally in my music.” With a direct connection established to the very outset of his career, Bader’s ideal set is one in which the music becomes the overriding factor. While DJing is technically his day job, it was a passion for a sound that set his heart a flutter and it becomes clear that he is only truly satisfied with his work when the music has the power not him. He continues, “I was dancing and at one point it was like I was playing only for myself at that moment. I was so lost in the music…”
“Just make tracks” is his very direct advice for anyone wishing to follow in his footsteps. Having allowed to music to seep through him, it was only when he really lost himself in experimentation that everything fell into place to Bader, “And send them to the right people,” he adds with a knowledge that it is not necessarily only a determined talent that takes you to the top. However, his closing comment is a word of warning rather than advice. In order to stand out in an overcrowded industry, he instructs, “Make what you want…not what you think the people like.”
BY JEREMY WILLIAMS
