CLAUDE VONSTROKE

The California-based dance powerhouse and Dirtybird label boss shares a wealth of business, gear and life advice – including his patented (or should be) “find the f*** you moment” songwriting approach. We’ll let him explain…

“A lot of [Claude VonStroke’s] success,” reads his Resident Advisor biography, “can be attributed to a good attitude”. While this is undeniably true, another sizeable chunk of the man born Barclay Crenshaw’s success is in his business strategy of taking a style of music not known for its warmth and serving it up with a dose of good old American gusto – to increasingly sizeable crowds at that.

But if the above makes the DJ, producer and Dirty Bird label boss sound like a dollar-signs-for-eyes accountant type, you just need to glance over his often playfully named discography. His latest EP Raggadagga, a collaboration with popular Polish dance act Catz ‘n’ Dogz, is a wired-up, “attention-grabbing” explosion of silliness and swagger. We found out more…

cm: Why/how did you first get into music?

CV: “I was always into music. I played piano and cello as a kid and eventually grew up into buying early samplers and sequencers. I was obsessed with the radio but mostly underground Detroit radio shows like Electifying Mojo and The Wizard which featured extremely eclectic and diverse programming from Spoony G to Parliament to Blonde to Juan Atkins. Eventually after many, many years of working bad jobs and working hard jobs in the film industry I finally figured out how to make money doing music and Dirtybird (my label) was started.”

cm: When and how would you say you became successful, or at least able to make a living from music?