Philipp Straub is an Austrian based DJ, booking agent and promoter who’s been actively on the dance music scene for more than two decades.
He started building his legacy in the early 90’s and he managed to become one of the most prolific acts within the underground music community in his area. For the last couple of years, he’s been successfully merging multiple ambitious projects as well as his own DJ career. His music is regularly released on respectful labels such as Bedrock, Ovum, 8bit, Knee Deep In Sound and more, just to name a few.
As a C.E.O. of Titan International and Music Director of Soho Garden & Soho Beach, which is the biggest venue development in Dubai, he is handling a huge number of top-notch events such as elrow, Ants, Solomun, etc.! He also is Central-Europe partner of the global agency Analog and responsible for a big roster of headlining talents! Formally known as head mentor of Burn & Burn Residency, where he was working for 8 years with his fellow friends Carl Cox, Luciano, Pete Tong, Loco Dice, John Digweed, Nastia, Dubfire, Seth Troxler and others, massively supporting new talents and helping them become part of the world of electronic music. Recently Philipp joined Croatian duo OUTCOME for new “LYRA” Ep out now on “BEDROCK RECORDS” (click here).
Ibiza by night met Philipp, and here you have the interview!
IBN: Hi Philipp, let’s talk about your new production.
Philipp: “Hey guys! Nice to be in touch! Like most artists I’ve been using the additional time lately to produce some new tracks. I personally enjoy working on collaborations and adding other producers to the procedure as the creative input from others keeps my workflow fresh. Earlier this year I had a release on Australia’s Balance Series where I joined forces with Morttagua from Brazil, who runs his well-respected Timeless Moments label. We worked on the tune together for quite a while, had Betoko do a brilliant remix and I also personally made a second mix from the original song. It leans a bit more towards the progressive side of melodic techno, but is a solid EP that did well. More recently, I released again on John Digweed’s Bedrock Records, which has become kind of my home label, on which I have had the pleasure of releasing music for over 12 years. For this new EP I worked with the upcoming duo Outcome, who come from Croatia. I absolutely love their melodic driven sound and this 4-track EP I really consider to be a masterpiece. I am very self-critical and also easily bored, so often, once an EP of mine comes out, I cannot hear those tunes anymore. There are only 2 former releases of mine that I think have the potential to become future timeless classics and now the “Lyra” EP on Bedrock I consider to be one of them.”
IBN: Philipp Straub and Ibiza… let’s talk about your relationship with the White Island.
Philipp: “Well, I first came to Ibiza when on Rave on Cruise, which probably was around the mid 90’s. It was my first encounter and I liked it, but didn’t fall in love. I somehow didn’t like the idea of going to such a beautiful island to only get wasted – which most of the people did. It took some years after that to re-connect with Ibiza, mainly due to my long-time friend Carl Cox, who invited me to play for his residency at Space. Due to Carl’s consistently positive and relaxed mood, I fell in love with Ibiza and found that there was so much more to the island than the crazy nightlife side; the nature, the culture, the food, the vibe, the people, its history, etc…
Some years later I developed the talent support platform Burn Residency for Coca Cola. I included Ibiza into the concept as it was and is the epi-centre of dance music and I used this opportunity also to personally spend more time on the island. For 7 years my wife and I spend most of our summers in Ibiza and have properly connected to the island and its lovely people. Ibiza is like my second home, it’s my spiritual home. There is no place in the world where I know more people personally than Ibiza.”
IBN: Any special anecdotes about Philipp & Ibiza? Come on…
Philipp: Well I like the saying “What happens in Ibiza, stays on Ibiza :)”. But as you ask: Once after an intense production day on the island, I went with a business partner of mine to see a friend in his villa. My business partner had asked his personal coach to come to Ibiza too and he joined us on the way. The guy was from New York and had never left the US, and was super excited about Ibiza. He was a totally straight forward, sporty and super healthy guy. So, we come to this huge mansion somewhere close to Talamanca and enter the house. Our Russian friend, who rented the villa, was banging a set on his rented Void Soundsystem. Typical to Russia, we got offered some Vodka shots which we enjoyed knowing it was a long and exhausting day. There was some chocolate laying around and we ate it with the Vodka. After half an hour we all started to feel a bit weird and soon found out that the chocolate was laced with magic mushrooms – which we didn’t know. So, at that point there was no going back and we had some more shots until the mushrooms reached their peak. The funniest part about it was that the personal trainer, who had just landed from the US and never had any encounter with something like that, was going totally nuts. We laughed a lot and ended up with a big gang of Russian friends behind the DJ booth of Pacha where Solomun was playing. The Russian girls dressed up the personal trainer with bandanas and gold chains like Tupac and it felt like we were in “The Hangover“ movie – totally out of control. After some hours when things got less intense, I was able to sneak out of the back door and texted my business partner telling him that I was going to leave before things got even more wild. He joined me, but we couldn’t get hold of the personal trainer, so we left him behind knowing he was in good company with our Russian friends. The next day when we drove back to the villa, the personal trainer was sleeping naked next to the swimming pool, still wearing the bandana and gold chains. When waking him up, he was so shocked about what had happened that he went straight to the hotel, packed his things and flew back to New York, where he asked his girlfriend to marry him and planned to never leave the US again.
This is one of these stories that prove that Ibiza can really suck you in and spit you out if you are not prepared or have good self-control. It’s happened many times to many people and will continue to happen!”
IBN: The last 12 months were very complicated for the music industry and for the clubbing… how do you imagine next months? Things will be better?
Philipp: “Every crisis is also an opportunity in my opinion. For sure it’s hard and a big challenge, but it’s also holds the potential for evolution within the industry to make things even better. We learnt that our industry is too dependent on its one revenue stream; live events and touring business. Our financial system is not so different to the times of Mozart and Beethoven, so for a movement like ours, which always claimed to be forward thinking, we somehow got a bit lazy in that sense. Finding ways to monetize digital content will be key and a way forward that helps everyone.
Fair systems on how artists get paid for their music are looking likely now and the total decentralized movement around blockchains, NFT’s and cryptocurrencies will help. Also, the pandemic opened the gates for things like online events. Tomorrowland online was a huge success and many kids who could have never afford to go to Belgium in real life, have the chance to be part of it. Things like these will benefit the industry in the long term.
The development of VR got pushed a lot and will for sure open a totally new universe of possibilities. I think the peak of the pandemic behind us but it won’t be the immediate return to normal that most people expect. The virus could mutate again and other things could happen along the way to affect our return to normality – we just don’t know.
A big challenge will be to see how people’s behaviours and desire changed generally due to the long break. I personally think we need to build up a new generation of ravers to hopefully get things back to where they used to be and ensure a more economically stable industry.
Vaccinations will help and there already covid testing concepts out there which are WHO approved and can guarantee safe events for some time.
Some countries have already tried this and I hope most politicians will have the confidence to follow suit. Society will not benefit in any way from all of the fear nor from the ongoing lockdowns in the long term.”
IBN: You have interacted with many famous djs and producers, who you got on best with?
Philipp: “Having had the pleasure of being in this industry for nearly 30 years, there are many DJs & producers who I have good relationships with – and some I even call my friends. But there are too many to just name one or a few. It’s the total circus of it all, and the artists which makes this experience so extraordinary, and that I enjoy a lot. Back then it started with a few hundred people and now it’s grown into a global community, but in the end it’s still a closely connected environment, mainly connected due to a mutual passion for electronic dance music”
Thanks Phillip!
