What did we learn from speaking to Darude?
When the opportunity arose to interview Finnish producer Darude I jumped at it. I mean, it’s not often you get the chance to chat to someone so strangely iconic, the man behind one of the world’s most recognisable tunes, ‘Sandstorm’. The track, a bonafide techno monster, went Platinum in the UK and Finland, and Gold in the US, Germany, and Sweden in the early 2000s.
It epitomised that Euro-techno sound we’d heard on Rage or Video Hits growing up, the electro-pop fad that saw acts like Eiffel 65, AQUA, and Bomfunk MC’s make their way into the Australian mainstream. The life of ‘Sandstorm’, however, is quite unlike that of its contemporaries.
In the early 2000s, after the huge initial success of ‘Sandstorm’, Darude toured the world while working on his sophomore record, Rush. Lacking a song with the hit potential of ‘Sandstorm’, Rush didn’t perform nearly as well on the charts and the DJ (bar some decent collaborations with US sports entities) began to fade into musical obscurity.
That is until around 2015, when ‘Sandstorm’ returned thanks to users of live-streaming service Twitch, who would jokingly use ‘Sandstorm’ as their background music on video uploads. This lead to memes, which lead to the re-popularisation of the song, not dissimilar to the way ‘Rickrolling’ introduced Rick Astley’s hit to a new generation of YouTube prank victims.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y6120QOlsfU
Skeptics may contend this new wave of attention for ‘Sandstorm’ contributed to Darude’s nomination as Finland’s representative for Eurovision 2019, though this couldn’t be further from the truth. Not only is his Eurovision song ‘Look Away’, which also features Sebastian Rejman, a deliciously brooding piece of electro-pop (AKA perfect fodder for the international competition), but such an assessment would underestimate his legacy as one of Finland’s finest musical exports – he is a hugely recognisable figure in his tiny homeland.
Ahead of our phone call, which was supposed to be promoting his Eurovision performances, I expected one of two things; that he would be completely against any mention of ‘Sandstorm’, or that he would be desperate to remind me of its success. Surprisingly, what I got was a chilled out professional, capable of having a laugh, but also very self-aware, and full of passion.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CwwMFctAKZs
“I love making music. I love being in a studio, I would do this without the payment,” he says from the Finnish Eurovision camp in Tel Aviv. “Even if I had another job and I had time here and there, night time or whatever free time, I’d probably be messing around with making music anyways.”
There’s a certain laidback quality to the way he speaks in his fluent but flavoured English. It’s a near-Australian friendliness, that may have rubbed off on him from the previous night. “I was invited to go the Australian Embassies’ reception at this amazing roof-top bar. I had some good cool chats with the Aussie representation and the Ambassador as well. [Ambassador] Chris [Cannan] seems to be a really nice and chilled guy.”
At this point in the interview I’m looking at the questions I’ve prepared; has he seen many YouTube covers of ‘Sandstorm’? Are there weird places he’d heard ‘Sandstorm’? any awkward performances of ‘Sandstorm’?… It’s clear my preparation was not as respectful as it could have been. “Tell me about your biggest performance,” I ask.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jCNNNv7AAYk
“I had the honor of starting our [Finland’s] 100 years of independence year, with playing my track in front of 80,000 people in the middle of Helsinki, in the turn of 2016 to 2017, New Year’s Eve. That is by far the best single gig I’ve ever done,” he says modestly. “It was such a lovely occasion, I was so honored to have been selected to do that and they were my people who I got to play my song to, in such a big way with fireworks and everything.”
Wow. It’s slowly becoming apparent that Darude is the nicest guy in the music industry, though I’m ready to have my bubble burst as we broach the subject of his multi-Platinum, meme-fuelling, techno banger.
“I’ve been very fortunate that there has been all this ‘Sandstorm’ meme stuff… I’m extremely proud of that track itself, that era my career got started then, and it’s been an amazing ride,” he says. “We’ve been trying to, not steer away from ‘Sandstorm’ per se, but I don’t want to promote myself with ‘Sandstorm’, but then with all the Internet and the meme stuff we’ve been able to lure people into my new music as well.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FnLbRXCtsP8
It’s a good point. His tracks such as ‘Feel The Beat’ and ‘Surrender’ have collectively amassed 10 million Spotify streams, dwarfed by ‘Sandstorm’ at 130 million, but still posting respectable numbers. His latest single ‘Hide’, which features Aussie vocalist JVMIE, is ticking along at a tidy three or so thousand streams a day so there’s no doubt that his creative output is still valued – not that that’s the point.
“I just love music and it’s just messing around with sounds and collaborating with other people too and it’s all just… there’s the financial and calculative side to it, you know, having a career… but it all really started and still is about making music and getting good vibes out of all of it.”
So I suppose the moral of this interview is never judge a Finnish techno DJ/producer by their cover (or the covers of their music).
