Toni Tambourine: So, who are you and where are you from?
Martin Solveig: My name is Martin Solveig, I am 27 years old and I live in Paris.


Toni Tambourine: ‘Rocking Music’ is really putting you on the map at the moment. Where did your inspiration for this come from?
Martin Solveig: To be honest I think my main influence for the song was the ‘Quincy Jones’ album by Michael Jackson. I knew that this singer was available who had a Jackson vibe about him and I wanted to do something that was a mixture of r&b, classic disco and electronica. I recorded the vocals the same way they do in r&b – even if there’s only one tone, they have two or three singers together so it’s a blend and it sounds quite rich. The singers were doing exactly what I wanted them to and it sounds great, I’m very proud of this production.


Toni Tambourine: It’s been getting fantastic reactions in all the clubs. Were you ready for that level of success?
Martin Solveig: No, not to that extent. I thought that it was a good tune – even when I first played it and no-one had heard about it I got good reactions, and I was happy with it. But now in some territories it’s really going out of control – like Australia and northern Europe where it’s really going high up in the charts and that was a really nice surprise. Not least because in terms of how it’s produced and how it sounds it’s very much in the style that I want to go through. So if it’s fine with the people then it’s fine with me.


Toni Tambourine: A lot of people commented that it sounds a bit like Justin Timberlake…
Martin Solveig: Yes it’s got some of the same flavour, but that’s fine. For me, Justin Timberlake is the new Michael Jackson. I love some of the new Justin Timberlake stuff - some of the Neptune productions are amazing.


Toni Tambourine: Would you have liked Justin Timberlake to sing on ‘Rocking Music’?
Martin Solveig: Ah, maybe I would like him to sing on another song that I would write for him. (laughs). Justin, if you’re reading this...


Toni Tambourine: Are all your productions strictly electronic, or do you introduce live elements into your music?
Martin Solveig: I use both but what really love doing is using classical instruments with an electronic device. For example I used a big BB3 Hammond, which is an organ, recorded a whole session with a musician and then took bits from it and made it sound like an electronic sample. You still have the good quality of the instrument, but with the ability to make it a bit faster or more repetitive or whatever.


Toni Tambourine: Is the fact that you studied classical music from an early age of any relevance to what you do now?
Martin Solveig: It’s a very different kind of music so it’s not of any great relevance to what I do now, but my training did help me develop my ears, make me more sensitive to melodies and form the technical basis of my musical writing – which is always useful, even when you produce very basic forms of music.


Toni Tambourine: You’re part of the French house scene which has produced some fairly legendary DJs. Which of them have been the most supportive for you?
Martin Solveig: The most supportive were probably Bob Sinclair and Claude Monet – a very famous Parisian DJ. Bob Sinclair was always playing my records, even ‘Out of Africa’, and then he invited me to join the Africanism Allstar team, which was brilliant because that was how I met Gregory, Julian Garbores, all those guys who had already been producing for a long time and I learned a lot through collaborating with them.


Toni Tambourine: Sur la Terre is your debut album so obviously it’s very important to you. What did you try and capture with it?
Martin Solveig: Sur la Terre is really the definition of a debut album, with all the imperfections of a young guy who is not very experienced. There’s also a lot of fresh stuff, because I guess I wasn’t corrupted by all the elements so I just did it exactly how I felt, so it’s very personal. Even if I’m not happy with some of the production and how it sounds now – because I’ve learnt a lot technically since – but I’m still very happy with the way it sounds.


Toni Tambourine: You collaborated with a very respected musician, Salif Keita, on Madan. How did that come about?
Martin Solveig: It started like a very classic remix request coming from a the label Univeral Jazz. At the time I was working on another afro-disco track, and when I heard the chant on it, which was a traditional chant, I realised that this was exactly what I was looking for to complete the track! I worked on an instrumental in two days and then did the whole remix within one week. I had the exact idea of what I wanted from the first listen to when I completed it.


Toni Tambourine: What was he like to work with?
Martin Solveig: He’s a very interesting person to be around – he’s full of history, and the humility of the African guys; I liked him very much and hope to collaborate with him again. I was originally a bit worried because he’s a very traditional artist, so I was worried that this contemporary interpretation wouldn’t go down too well with him. But he was like ‘Non! C’est fantastique! I really like it.’ He’s very into the general remix idea so he was really happy with this, he also found a whole new audience because of it.


Toni Tambourine: The foot logo comes in a lot in the artwork on your sleeves, and even to the extent where you have it painted on your face. What does that represent?
Martin Solveig: It’s the meaning of the evolution because my first album is called ‘Sur la Terre’ which means ‘The Birth’, so now step by step I’m trying to walk on the musical ground. It’s also catchy because it’s very related to my music, which is music that comes from the earth and from the soul, in a way the opposite of the ‘atmospheric’ music, like trance for example. So for me it’s full of meaning, in lots of ways.


Toni Tambourine: Has working with Defected been good for you?
Martin Solveig: Defected has been a very important step in my evolution because now I have a good experience of working with a big label. Sometimes it’s hard to make yourself artistically understood, which is a problem that you don’t have with Defected because it’s a specialist house music label so it has a great background with so many major releases both in the underground scene and in the crossover scene, so it’s in a great position.


Toni Tambourine: The future is obviously looking very bright for you, but do have any advice for any budding Martin Solveigs?
Martin Solveig: It’s getting harder and harder for people to emerge because the industry is down. But in a way I think that’s a good thing because when it’s hard there are less people interested so one bit of advice you really have to work hard. You have to believe in yourself and really knock on the door because no-one is going to do that for you, so you have to push a little bit and hopefully step by step...everything’s possible.