Could you first tell us a bit about yourself? (Hobbies, interests, ..)

I was born in Antwerp 31 years ago (already!) and always loved music.
Ever since I was kid of 7 years old, I was messing around with the turntable and listening to records.
I was into all kinds of music back then. That changed when I started to listen to New Wave and later on New Beat.
I was completely into this kind of electronic music and have been ever since. Except for music in general,
my hobbies are sports (I used to play professional tennis), clubbing and watching movies.
I also love to travel (wish I could do this more often).

How did you enter the DJ club scene ?

I entered the clubscene through some dj’s I knew around 1994, like Dave (Planet Hardcore), Fly, Yves Deruyter
and Franky Kloeck. They inspired me to become a dj myself and got me into the clubscene.
I started out at a local radiostation called Rave Fm at the end of 1993, which led to some bookings at small parties
in clubs like Dixie’s (Brasschaat) and La Scala (Blankenberge).
From there on I got my resident-spots in clubs like Qu (Brasschaat), The Hole (Schoten), Pampas (Brecht),…
Later on I started playing in bigger clubs like Extreme.

Which styles do you play ? In which clubs have you been playing?

I mainly play trance and progressive trance, but nowadays I try to combine different styles.
I also play some groove, house, tech-house and even hardtrance and techno.
I’ve played in loads of clubs, here’s a small list :

• Dorian Grey (Frankfurt, Germany)
• EFX-Club (Hamburg, Germany)
• Oxa (Zurich, Switzerland)
• Waterfront (Arbroath, Scotland)
• Ministry Of Dance (Rotterdam, Holland)
• Trance Buddha (Amsterdam, Holland)
• Time (Amsterdam, Holland)
• Zillion, BBC, Cherrymoon, Club X, Illusion, Belair, Dixie’s, Highstreet, Tropicana, La Scala, Empire, Obsession,… (Belgium)

What were your best DJ gigs? Best memories?

My best gigs were at Love Parade (Berlin, Germany) in 2002, where I played on the JimTV/La Rocca-truck
and one on the Summerboatparty in Oslo, Norway. This boatparty was superb and all people on the boat where really amazing.
Never experienced an atmosphere like that before!

What are your plans as a DJ ?

My plans as a dj are mainly to continue what I’m doing right now and (hopefully) get booked for all major events
in the future (like Trance Energy, Sensation, Antwerp is Burning,…).
I would also love to play in Australia and the US once. Maybe Ibiza if possible…

When did you start producing and why ?

I started producing in 1997. This started out as just an experiment with some guys I knew back then.
But it soon turned out to be a succes! My first record ever (under the alias Energy Source), sold over 600 copies
(not bad) and was on the playlist of guys like Tiesto! But the big succes came in 1998 with Fire & Ice,
a project I started with Airwave (aka Laurent Veronnez). I met Laurent on the Love Paradetruck in 1997
and after a small chat and lots of fun we decided to start out a tranceproject with as main target
producing emotional trance. And it worked out great! We’re still working together and our latest release
Samoa/Para Siempre has done amazingly well!

Can you give an overview of the projects you are involved with ?

The projects on which I’m currently still working are Fire & Ice and Dj Fire.
I also used to produce under the following names : Energy Source, E.N.E.R.G.Y., Intimo, Captain Kirk, Freebase,
Power Station and Progrez presents…

What are your goals/dreams for 2004? What can we expect of you in the near future music-wise?

For 2004 I hope to score big with one of my projects and dj-wise try to play more abroad…
Let’s hope it works out! And of course lots of travelling and taking a nice vacation together with my girlfriend!
A new Fire & Ice is already finished and will be out around the summer.
The new Dj Fire is coming in one month and promises to be big,
as it is already in the playlists of guys like Armin van Buuren and Judge Jules!
Title will be Religion and it will we released on Progrez.

How is the cooperation with DJ Airwave for Fire & Ice ?

The cooperation with Airwave is still great, after 6 years of working together.
We understand each other perfectly and if I like to change something in a track we’re working on,
he sometimes knows it before I even have to say anything…
We don’t work together as much as we used to, but he has an enormous amount of projects he’s working on.
So we try to work together as much as possible.

Which styles of music do you like?

I like different kinds of music… Going from R&B to some rock and also normal top50-music.
I’m not really a fan of “carnavalmusic”, if you know what I mean…
Usually I also don’t like artists that sing in Dutch (there are a few exceptions).

Is there someone you would like to collaborate with ?

I would love to collaborate with Oliver Lieb, Gabriel & Dresden or Markus Schultz, these are some of my favourite producers…

What do you think about selling music via internet ? Where do you think the music bizz is going? (and Banshee Worx/Bonzai in particular)

At first, I wasn’t to keen on the idea of music through internet.
This was mainly because sales were dropping rapidly (vinyl and cd), but it can also be used as a promotional tool.
And at the moment more and more companies are starting with payable downloads, which is a good thing.
That way artists can earn something with their music after all… Banshee/Bonzai is also thinking of going in this direction, we’ll see…

Do you think the lowering of taxes on cd’s will get the music business out of this crisis?

Lowering taxes might not get the music industry out of the crisis, but it will certainly help in increasing sales a little… Let’s hope that one day this law will pass through…

What do you think about the dance scene in Belgium ? What are your favourite Belgian dancetracks ? International tracks? How do you see the future of this?

The dancescene in Belgium isn’t great, but if you look at other countries, things could be worse.
There’s a huge crisis in the clubscene all over the world and countries like the UK and Germany are suffering
even more than Belgium and Holland. At the moment my favourite tracks from Belgium are mainly Banshee-related releases,
since there’s hardly anything else in Belgium at the moment except from commercial dancemusic like Milk Inc, Lasgo,…
Internationally my favourite tracks are new products by Markus Schultz, like his latest release “Clear Blue”
and usually all stuff by Gabriel & Dresden. I think music is really splitting up and this might change in the future.
In the beginning everything was called house, now you’ve got about 30 or more different subgenres…
At the moment more and more producers are combining styles, so things are growing closer to each other again…
It’s really hard to put some tracks in one style…

Do you get alot of visitors on the Banshee worx/DJFire.nl website?

We get more and more visitors on the Bonzai-site. I think we receive about 400 hits a day, not too bad…
I’m not sure about my own site, but I haven’t made a lot of publicity for this site…
I’m pretty happy with it and a new site is coming soon : www.dj-fire.com.
Hopefully this site will be even better than the one I’ve got right now.

Anything you would like to say to the dancevibes visitors ?

I’d like to say : hope to c u soon in one of the clubs I’m playing at,
keep on clubbing and don’t copy music if you want music to survive… Have a great weekend and party on!!

More info about DJ Fire can be found on the recently updated Official DJ Fire site!

This interview was made by Wim.