BORN "Detroit, 1969."

FAMILY
"Of course there were some musical people in my family, like my brother playing guitar and my sister played flute. But my parents didn't play any instruments. For the most part, I think by the time I came along, because there's almost a decade gap between my brother and I, that the majority of the music that was being listened to in the house was music from my older brother and sister. So anything that my parents were really interested in, they weren't that interested in anymore because it was dominated by the children. Of course between brothers and sisters there was always the fight for the radio; my brother wanted to listen to more of the local black stations and my sister wanted to listen to, you know, things that were a bit more candy-coated. With the case of anybody that has any older brothers or sisters, their influence is going to be tremendous - as well as if you have a parent that is a keyboardist or if you have a parent that is really into music, then of course they're going to influence your likes and dislikes in music. But I think that, because a brother or sister are closer to your age, you're going to listen to what they have to say and what they like a lot more."

MUSICAL ROOTS
"I've always been interested in electronic sounds; whether it was one of the compositions called 'Popcorn' or when I saw a cover of 'Switched-On-Bach' or, you know, anything that had an electronic sound in it. Or electronic sounds which, in the '70s, I think a lot of records had more sophisticated electronic sounds than what they did in the '60s, so they did really influence me. And by the time I was really buying my own records, I was of course buying things like Kraftwerk and that kind of stuff. But because of my age and because of my brother mainly, I listened to a lot of Parliament-Funkadelic, which had a lot of electronics in it, and Prince and Barkays and Ohio Players and all that kind of stuff. But I think that what really influenced me the most in my career from growing up was Prince and Kraftwerk. So when I started producing records, there were very strong traits of those two artists in my music."

FIRST PROJECTS
"My first releases were 'Psyche,' which was on Transmat and a song called 'Elements,' that actually is a Psyche track but it was on a compilation called the 'Techno 2 Compilation' on 10 Records. And then the 'Psyche' EP, that was on Transmat and then the 'BFC' EP, that was on Fragile. Music was something that I always wanted to do, I remember being a kid and telling my mom that I wanted to be a DJ like Electrifyin' Mojo, which isn't what I started doing first. I started making records first before I DJ'd. But it really just blows my mind to think that I said something like that when I was 10 and now this is something that I do as a profession. I think that because of the pressure from my parents, especially my mom (who was being discouraging about music as a profession because she wanted me to go to university and to graduate from university), I think I've always seen it as something that I had to do and so I would have to take it seriously as a profession instead of it just being that it's a hobby. I would never have been able to get away with doing it in my parents' eyes if I would've had an idea that it was a hobby."

LABELS & PRODUCTION
"Milestones definitely have been when I did a track for Herbie Hancock; I think that was a fantastic opportunity, it was with Bill Laswell and Herbie Hancock. Also the 'Detroit Experiment' album was a fantastic experience for me because I was able to work with all these legends like Marcus Belgrave and Geri Allan and Regina Carter. These are legends in jazz but they're all from Detroit. Bennie Maupin, who used to be part of Herbie Hancock's Head Hunters…and to not only have the opportunity to co-direct them in the studio but to take their parts back and manipulate them in the studio. The Innerzone Orchestra project was really exciting for me as well, with Francisco Mora and Craig Taborn and Rodney Whittaker. It was great because it was just a variety of different instrumentalists but it was my first step into doing something like that because I'd always been an electronic musician. So it was great to have these craftsmen adding their touch to my music, it was fantastic."

DJING
"I am a producer, my career started as a producer. And even when I DJ, I DJ with production in mind, almost like I'm mixing a record of my own. And I find that that happens to me a lot with remixes - when I remix someone else's material, I do take it as if I'm doing my own music. So I really get into it completely, it's not just like 'Oh, well this ain't my shit so I'm just gonna add something…' or 'I got a track laying around so here's the track and I'll just put the vocals on top.' I really try to craft the piece and I put a lot of my energy and spirit into the music. And with DJing, that's what I try to do as well. It's almost like I'm sitting in a control booth and I'm the captain and I'm shooting these lasers out but I'm trying to find a new way to recreate how I can send these sonic weapons…"

FABRIC
"The first time I played at fabric was for a Reinforced 10 year anniversary party, I did a live show there. There was a Detroit room with 430 West and Octave One and myself in that room. That was my first experience in Room One. And of course the sound is fantastic in Room One. Throughout the years I've been asked back to DJ and I really enjoy my time down there because it's a fantastic environment to listen to music. I think that if I had soundsystems like that at every gig, then I would be completely in heaven."

THE MIX
"Initially, I wanted to do the mix at fabric on an off-day. But that wasn't possible. I did have fabric in mind when I made the mix - but because I was doing it in my studio and it's a new facility, there was quite a lot of experimenting that I ended up doing in order to understand what I was doing to understand how to facilitate the mix. I really let it go around in my mind over and over again and I thought 'Okay, it would be better to do this using new technology,' in comparison to using turntables or CDs so I used Tractor to put the mix together. And of course that's from my production roots in comparison to my DJ roots because I wanted to use the newest technology that I could to do the mix."

THE FUTURE
"A really important thing for me is to complete work on my new album.
The future's the future and it happens as it does, so there's nothing I can interject to change that."

www.myspace.com/carlcraig