We sat down with French Producer Creeds during EDC Las Vegas to discuss the Hard Techno boom in the United States, his viral track ‘Push Up’, and some surprises during his EDC Las Vegas set.
In Europe Techno with a “K” (Tekno) is really popular, in America we don’t have that, how would you describe that to Americans and what are your thoughts on the current state of Hard Techno in the United States?
Well first, I would describe it basically as a revival of the old school Hardstyle sound, to be honest. Everyone is starting to call it Hard Techno, let’s be honest it’s a revival of the old school Hardstyle sound, Reverse Bass and stuff like that. Personally, I’m super happy to see that at many festivals now, this style is getting bigger and bigger. I believe there are many good things to do and I also think it seems to be a good path to go to the Harder Styles. I saw that over many years, young people discovering Techno, they looked at Hardcore music and thought “What the f*** is that”. And now I see that even Hard Techno now just plays sometimes some Hardcore music and Hardcore stuff. And I really, really see that it’s a good way to go into Hardcore music and to make it discoverable to younger people, then the good thing is saying to the agenda, you can play basically, anything that you want in a set, you can play some Hardcore stuff in the middle of the set if you want and most of the people like it, so I’m super happy about that.
And the good thing also playing in this kind of festival is that the Hardcore scene is now here, with many many great artists on the scene. So that mean we can do Hard Techno and, in the middle, go Raw Style or Uptempo. So, it’s allowed now and super happy about that. Because during many years, I tried in my own set to make these things happen, you know, like I was being Psytrance music and sometimes Hardcore music, like two tracks after and so now well, we feel like it’s allowed to do so.
That’s amazing. I think it’s a great way to get people in the door. I think originally, people would be scared of 200 bpm music and think “Oh that’s scary or it’s demonic. So, I think it’s a great entryway and I love to see it as well. So, I want to talk about obviously your biggest track “Push Up”. Why do you think it blew up so much? What do you think resonated with people so much about it?
To be honest, I don’t know. On the pure production side, I would say just the melody that is super simple. And with a simple waveform, you know, in terms of production and sound design, something really, really, really easy, basically, that can stick in the mind. And also, the vocal that is really, really good by Fabian Mizzou, the guy who made the vocal actually it’s a guy, not a girl. And then after that, maybe the track just arrived at the right time and the right moment. Also, thanks to TikTok and social media like that it went way more than it could have been if it wasn’t there, you know? So, I think it’s a combination of everything that that went good.
Speaking of TikTok. So back in my day, Trance songs were seven minutes long Techno songs were like 13 minutes long. Today we’re seeing with TikTok in short form content songs getting shorter and shorter. How do you feel about that?
I don’t think it’s really up to just TikTok you know, if you look at just the way the labels even used to work back in the days, you know, they didn’t want any track more than three minutes and a half or three minutes because of the radio. So, since years and years, it’s the thing you know, you can’t really release something more than three minutes if you want to get on the radio or stuff. So, I don’t think TikTok has so much to do with it, honestly.
So maybe now composers sometimes tried to just have the right hook you know, for 10 seconds and then having a drop from 10 seconds also just to be able to tease it and TikTok maybe, but in the end it’s still like a three or four minute long tracks you know, in the extended mix. So, but I know that big levels because I also work with Sony and I know when they take a track from me, they said okay, there is the extended mix, but you need to do also a shorter version. And it’s not about TikTok is just that many labels work that way you know especially the major labels and not necessarily the underground labels.
Do you think tracks will continue to get shorter and shorter or do you think it’ll stay around the three four minute mark like you said?
No, I think it will stay the same. What you hear on TikTok is basically most of the time, I think so, I’m not that much on TikTok also myself, but I think it just an extract, a preview of what is the longer track you know, so I don’t I don’t think there is like a 20 second track. It doesn’t exist, it’s always at least two minute and a half and on TikTok. You just see this little snippet, you know, but I don’t think no, there will not be. Well, I hope so.
So speaking of EDC you’re playing tonight, I’ll be there of course, what can we expect from your set any surprises or anything you can tell us about?
Well, tonight I don’t play and my solo project as Creeds. I play with Helen Ka, a French singer I have a project with and we play more Frenchcore and we compose Hardcore and Frenchcore. So she’s a singer so she writes her own lyrics and singing on top of the production that we do together. So, we are more the 200 BPM thing you know, it’s because of the lineup, it was supposed to be well Warface before us, and then another duo that makes also Frenchcore at 200. So it didn’t make sense to have just a creative project on this timeline basically. So, this is why our agents said okay, let’s put it with Helen Ka and so we can play 200 BPM tracks so it’s gonna be way more hardcore that I what I usually do as Creeds solo.
So what’s your favorite type of Hardcore? Or what genre do you prefer to play? Or do you like to do a little bit of everything?
To be honest to play Frenchcore, Hardcore and Hard Techno is what I like the most, but to be honest, I tried also to make sometimes some more to Hard Groove tracks seven minutes long, like we said and to mix it’s really it’s pleasant, it’s super nice to be able to put like two or three tracks because it’s not full tracks you know, it’s just empty tracks basically with just symbols and stuff. So, it’s, it’s good to mix but no, no, honestly hard techno for me is the is the way to go.
So, because you do cross so many boundaries and borders when it comes to genres, do you like to put yourself in a hard techno category or a hard dance category? Or what would you say about that?
Well honestly, I don’t really care what it’s called. I feel Hard Dance might be a little bit more accurate you know, because it can really show much more of the of the style you know but if people want to call it Hard Techno let’s call it Techno you know, but in the end there are many tracks that mix between kind of Hard Psy stuff with the Hard Techno bass and that goes Reverse Bass also in a more gated kick that goes more Hardstyle would work too.
So how do you balance what you want to play with what the crowd wants to play? Do you change your sets based on Europe or in the US?
At first, I was because I’m not familiar to DJing you know, basically, I’m more of a composer so I don’t even have like a CDJ at my home. So, I just, I have a bunch of tracks and when I see what the audience likes or not, I change the sets. That’s the way it seems to work, but it’s every time I still have Hard Techno or Reverse Bass Hardstyle or Hardcore, you know, if the people don’t like it, I’m f***ed.
