When John Ferris was in Perth several weeks ago for Ministry of Sounds Hard NRG gig over Easter, he could hardly contain his praise “It was absolutely fantastic. Describing his last time here as slightly disappointing, he remarks, “This time around it seemed to go off. Last time I felt the crowd got a bit bored, and by the time I came along, a shitload of people disappeared.”
John Ferris is often known for his mishmash style, yet as a leader of the so called “Hard Style” genre in Australia, one can not help but be envious of a man whom for all intents and purposes, cant see the point in the need to name the genre to which he loves “It’s a bad thing to genre-fy yourself [as a dj], you can become too well known [for one thing], and a good thing can become an albatross.”
What is Hard, one might ask? It changes from day to day. Hard Dance. Hard House. Hard Trance. Hard stomp-stomp. Hard who the fuck knows. But having released a whole journey of Hard-related music on the Ministry of Sound HARD NRG mix cd’s, John is somewhat
laconic in attitude, and as someone who could mix Harder tracks into his sets, and follow them with diversified genres, it is no wonder that he has propelled himself to the fore of this at times
confusing genre. Hard dance has become its own genre-defying entity by its sheer cross over of style and permutations of more well known and established genres.
Having only begun to release his own tracks, it has taken several years of playing around the globe, releasing mix sets, and schmoozing fashion shows for him to release his own material. “It took so long because I just got so busy doing other things, and because one has to be proficient with the technology. Its time consuming to do that, I tend to bag out djs when they just put their name on things.”
Yet hard dance isn’t a new phenomenon, regardless of its constantly shifting styles.
“We don’t care what people call it,” remarks Bossie, who, along with Nic Chagall forms half of the world renowned production duo, Cosmic Gate. “Some people name us as the fathers of Hard Style, but its not about that at all” he laughs. “We always want people to hear that it is Cosmic Gate, and that is always has that feeling.”
Cosmic Gate work hard. They play hard, and when they relax…”If we ever had the time, we’d love to do a chill out album,” and with a sigh, and a half smile you can just hear peeking through his voice, Bottie breaks into laughter, “When I have free time I often don’t listen to music at all.”
There is little to do but cheer such thinking, and the ability to dissociate one’s self from such a hectic realm. “We have to plan things a lot more these days because of our time schedule, maybe that’s why it is still special, because we don’t have enough time — We love to be well known, but it all has to be about the music.”
In a world where your music of choice is often defined by magazines, television, inter-web sites and trainspotters, perhaps the key to understanding something like the Hard dance-nrg-come-styled phenomenon is as simple as keeping your love of the music free from expectation and the sheer wish to be able to pigeon hole everything that comes our way. Perhaps, maybe, instead of the genre, its actually all about the music – stranger things have, after all, happened…
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