Interview with DJ Ferry Corsten, Hotel Habtoor, 6pm.
A) Intro:
On Wings of Angels, he came to us tonight to perform in the best event for this summer,
organized by Poliakov Vodka, Full on Ferry. Hello Ferry Corsten! Welcome to Lebanon! How are you?
F.C: I'm good, really excited to be back again after two years. This time it's going to be outdoors, the
weather is amazing so it's promising to be a great night.
B) Questions:
1. Tell us, are you enjoying Lebanon?
Always! It's one of those wild, enthusiasic crowd scenes. It's one of my favorite countries. I love the
middle east but, Lebanon definitely out of all the countries is the most forward thinking, so I love being
here.
2. We saw you checking our new website that we launched, what do you think about it?
It looks good! It's the first time I see it but, it looks nice and spacious, it covers whatever is happening.
It triggers one's imagination, like me as a guy, I liked seeing pictures of a couple of beautiful women (laughs).
3. Are you excited as much as we are for tonight?
Yeah! Definitely! It's not just about being in Lebanon, it's the event Full on Ferry. The first time we
launched it outside of Holland was in Ibiza, and it has gone crazy eversince. So I'm really excited about
launching it here in Beirut especially that it's going to be the first outdoor Full on Ferry event so it's
going to be really interesting.
4. Ferry Corsten, also known as System F, why?
Also known as System F, also known as Gouryella, also known as a whole bunch of names. Well those
different names were all a product of a different era, different times. I wasn't really Djing yet so much.
I was really only producing at such a high rate that I released a track every week. It was too much for
one record label to handle, so I decided to come up with different names to release music with different
record labels. Then, at some point I started my own label but, I didn't have any other artists with me so,
I came up with different names to make it look like different artists. After a while, I decided to drop all
that and start again under my real name.
5. Who has inspired you to become Ferry Corsten? Any specific Djs/artists?
No, not really Djs or artists, it's more an era, I guess. I grew up in the 80's listening to the early club
music, so I was inspired by that kind of genre; the electro of the 80's not the electro/house that people
talk about nowadays. So it's more of an era than a person that inspired me to start making trance music.
6. Now there's something that we as your fans, specifically your Lebanese fans, that we all agree on
which is: Ferry Corsten has his own style in Trance music. This is something that is very clear, anyone
can notice that, your style is very unique. So we'd like to know the secret behind that.
The secret is that there is no real secret. What it might be the case is that when I started at 16, there
was no techno or trance, everything was called house. At some point, I had my big breakthrough that
labeled me as a trance producer with System F's Out of the Blue in 1999, my remix for Adagio for
Strings, all those tracks made me a trance producer or DJ. I tried everything (all the types of
music) and I've always been open minded about everything. Therefore, I started
experimenting the electro and the house and all the kinds of music in both my productions and my DJ
sets cause anything that I produce, I also like playing it myself. My philosophy is that trance is about
melody and emotion going hand to hand. Whatever I play to me it's all trance. Right now, we are in a
very important time in trance music. Everything is coming together. This gives me a wide variety
to play. What I produce is all about waves; happy/sad. Some DJs never change their style
but, I like to surprise myself everytime because I get bored quickly. Triggering myself and reaching
boundaries sometimes inspires me. Some people like it, others don't.
7. Your last work was Once Upon a Night in 2010. We really loved it. And on April 11, 2012, your 250th
episode of Corsten's Countdown aired live for eight hours. It even became a Twitter trending topic for
three times. That is exhilarating!
Yeah, it's crazy! It was the anniversary of Corsten's Countdown, and we wanted to celebrate this. A lot of
people have been asking me on Twitter (I'm like being
active on these websites) for two hours non stop. Believe me, it'll never be two hours because I
believe that the power of the show is that it's one hour. It's over before you know it, and you'll
be wanting more. However, for this show, I thought: how about a full 8 hours day of work? Live from the
city of New York, with people online requesting tracks on all the platforms. At the end of the day we had
a Top 10 for the requested tracks. It was great but, I must say that I never expected that it's going to
take a hell lot of work! It was very tough yet exhilarating.
8. Are you preparing for something new?
Definitely there is something in the works right now for the very end of this year, Corsten's Countdown,
special New Year's Eve is coming up.
9. By the way, Mabrouk which means congratulations in Arabic, for being voted number 2 in this year's
Trance Podium DJ top 50!
Yeah, thanks! It was cool, it was great!
10. After Beirut, where are you heading next?
I am thinking about locking myself for a week in the studio, day and night. I have a lot of stuff I want to
finish. Then, it's Sunrise in Poland, Full on Ferry in Ibiza. Then, France and Belgium and the UK, and
that's it for what I have in my head right now (laughs).
11. Any message for your fans?
It's been two years guys, I'm back here so tonight Full on Ferry at La Suite Oceana. If you don't
make it this time, make sure you'll be there next time cause you are going to miss out a lot! Thank you
Beirut!
C) Ending:
Thank you so much Ferry, for coming here tonight. We are so honored to have you and so
excited for tonight's event at La Suite Oceana-Damour. Hope you'll have a great show. We'd like to wish
you all the luck but, please don't make us wait too long for another wild Ferry Corsten event here in
Lebanon. This was Sola and Miriam from Beiruting.com. Cheers!
