Hello Markus! We're indonesiaclubbing.com - thanks for the chance to interview you!

Hello indonesiaclubbing!

This is your first time in Indonesia?

In Jakarta yes, but I've actually played in Bali about 3 years ago. Double Six that was.

You like Jakarta so far?

Oh, it's certainly special, and yeah I arrived last night so I've been touring around the city earlier today with Blowfish people, and I like it very much!

You're staying till the weekend?

Nope unfortunately just till Friday morning. But I'll go see Jakarta by night and go clubbing on my own tomorrow - tonight it's time to work!

Cool, so yeah what we wanna know first is about.....You know, you travel a lot. You were born in Germany and then moved to the USA and grew up your teenage life there. Do you feel that you're more American now or you're still a true German at heart?

Well.....I would say I'm a citizen of the world.

I was born in Kassel, in Hessen State, West Germany. Then when I was 13 my family decided to move to the US, to Arizona. A real big change for me, but I was happy I grew up in two different cultures.

Today, I have two residences: one in Miami, Florida, where my family lives, and the other in Berlin, Germany, because I spend a lot of time in summer in Europe too. But home is where the heart really is, and my heart is everywhere. When I'm in Florida, I feel home. When I'm in Germany, I feel home, too. I was in Bangkok, I love Bangkok and I felt home there. And I've already felt home with Jakarta.

So yeah, citizen of the world is a good term to explain how I'm feeling about the question home. It's really good to feel that way, because with me being DJ, I get to travel a lot and if I can't feel comfortable wherever I am, it'd be difficult to go abroad that often.

And your nickname Dakota came from a state you also lived in? Did you ever live in Dakota? North or South?

Oh, haha, actually I've never lived there. When we moved to Arizona, the street we lived in was called North Dakota Street...That's where I started getting vinyls, mixing and somehow the kick off of my DJing journey and I liked how that sound so I took it as my alias when I started producing.

But you know, I haven't used that name for quite a long time, maybe since 2001, so it's funny you brought it up and I'm happy that people actually remember the nickname - thanks for the reminder!

You play trance. But people often say that in the US today, trance is no longer king to the big throne it had occupied in the 1990s. What do you think about it?

Well, I think that's not completely correct... Yes it's true that big trance clubs for example the Manhattanite Twilo closed in the early 2000s, but I think even though trance has practically disappeared from a lot of American clubs which prefer house or hip hop today, it still survives big time through huge room rave parties.

I agree that it's hard to play only trance in small clubs - house genre would be more suitable - but in large rave area, there's nothing to make the crowd go wild apart than a good trance set.

You started in the early 1990s pretty much like Paul van Dyk, Sasha, John Digweed. Yet, today you still stick to trance while they all switch to minimalism, progressive techno and electro. Why is that?

I think, Paul, Sasha and John never really leave the trance genre.

I think even though they experiment with other genres, the trance soul still breathes within. And my genre is since the beginning more of progressive trance, so it's not pure trance with boring loops - it has ups and downs, melodies, vocals, and a lot more extra elements that make my set alive and people can still dance with it.

You were ranked 8th in the DJmag top 100 last year, 2008. That means that people all over the globe voted for you, and to vote they must know and love your music. But if not all of them bought your music, they must've listened to it somehow, and it could be through illegal downloading. That comes to my question: are you pro or are you con for this matter? Knowing that if people don't buy your music, but they support you in another way which was by voting Markus Schulz into the 8th rank in the world.

Not easy to answer...This is a really good question. Well I guess it's pretty much gray area where we're dwelling in when it comes to music download and piracy.

I can't blame people not wanting to buy all records, who can afford to buy it all anyway? But I want to tell everyone that if you like the DJ, then please show a little support by buying one track. Just one to start. If you like it so much then try to buy more, little by little. Nobody forces you to spend all your cash for music but maybe just a little bit of your money will help the music industry to grow stronger and recover from the grave disease it's suffering right now: the disease of music piracy.

I know a lot of young talented musicians and DJs who can't concentrate on making quality music because they have other jobs to do - daytime jobs as we call it - they're forced to sacrifice their time to make ends meet, and that's because people don't buy their music!

Just like I say, we're 7 billion people in the world, so if one person buys a song for US$ 1 that could already help very much for the industry to keep going.

Well, that's so true. I think if someone really likes a song, s/he should buy it just to show some support, because the artist must've spent time, money and so much effort to make the track...

Yeah, see what I mean? Just a little support - a little gesture from yourself and if everyone does their own little gesture it'll be great.

My last question then - in your 20 years of career, is there any gig you will always remember?

Oh, a lot of them, but there's this one gig in LA a couple of years ago that's still fresh in my mind...I was playing in the Los Angeles Sports Arena and it was huuuuuuge! 40 thousand people all watching me, following my set and just when I peaked my set, some wonderful fireworks bursted off inside the arena - indoor, can you believe it?

It was marvelous and definitely one of the best moments in my career.

Alright then Markus, thanks soooooo much and yeah unluckily the time's up, so see you tonight and thanks for the time!

It was my pleasure, please stay through the night, and through your website I want to thank you everyone who makes my gig tonight in Jakarta possible, everyone who has worked so much for this event...Blowfish, you and all media, everyone! I will love playing here!