The Juan Maclean

There’s a real Giorgio Moroder vibe to ‘A Place Called Space’, the first track from the new album, with the 16th-note bassline and chunky guitars – it’s like ‘I Feel Love’ meets ‘Push It To The Limit’. What kind of music were you listening to as you wrote the album? Were there any direct musical influences or reference points?

We were listening to ‘The Warriors Theme’! There’s a lot of that song in there. Also, a lot of DAF, one of my all-time favourite bands. Somehow it actually started as a DAF-type thing, when it was just the drums and the modular synth bass. I think any time you use a 16th-note arpeggiated bassline now people will think Moroder. I guess it’s fair but I feel a little lame with the Moroder reference – it’s a bit like being in a rock band and saying you were influenced by The Rolling Stones. More than Moroder, Pink Floyd was a big reference for that track, but I’m not sure how much it comes through. Also, Chrome, one of my all-time favourite bands, is in there quite a bit. ‘In A Dream’ is the Chrome song I was listening to a lot when making ‘A Place Called Space’.

How about non-musical influences? What else inspired the album?

I think the trajectories of our personal lives always influence these records. If I could speak in general for Nancy without getting too personal, much of the types of things we sang about on previous albums were things that are now more settled for her. She’s coming from a stronger, more balanced place. On my part, however, through the early days of conceiving this album, my personal life continued on the now lifelong trajectory of consistent personal ruin and isolation, due in large part to being on the road most of the time. I’ve been doing this for a long time, it’s become a lifelong commitment, and the toll it takes on your personal life cannot be underestimated. ‘Love Stops Here’ conveys a lot of this, or I hope it does at least in an impressionistic way.

You’ve described the album as “the Nancy show” – it features Nancy’s voice heavily on almost every track. Was that a deliberate move or something that developed organically as you wrote material?

It’s been a deliberate trajectory from the very beginning of The Juan MacLean. I’ve always said that I wanted to move from making more instrumentally based music to making tighter and tighter songs with a more traditional verse/chorus structure. It always struck me as an interesting move, as opposed to coming out of the gates making catchy ‘songs’ and becoming more instrumental or experimental.

You once said you took a break from making music because you were happier to chop wood and do yoga. Is the opposite true now? Are you happy with what you’re doing at the moment or do you ever have a burning desire to get out of music again and go back to teaching?

Ha! The break only lasted about two years really. I don’t think of it in terms of being happy with what I’m doing – it’s much more that I can’t do anything else. I’ve always felt the drive, whether I wanted to or not, to make music. It’s the energy that propels my life, not just some aspect of my life as a whole. I’m now speaking from the perspective of someone who has been doing this for 25 years or years, and I think I can give myself credit at this point for achieving a degree of success and consistent relevance that is quite rare. People who are at the top of the game now, cashing in on whatever trend’s big at the moment, revelling in the partying and girls and drugs and basketball jerseys and terrible tattoos they got last week, I’m not sure where they’ll be in 10 years. For me, it’s always been about music, I don’t really give a fuck about the rest of it.

I still do the yoga. It’s something I’m very quiet and private about but it keeps me sane, somewhat, and allows me to play more shows in a year than people half my age. It honestly keeps me very focused as a DJ. A lot of people use drugs to get to the place that something like yoga gets me, but that’s not a sustainable plan. And this is coming from a former heroin addict, so I think I know what I’m talking about.

Is it a stretch to say there’s a link between teaching and making music, in terms of enriching people’s lives? Are the rewards similar? Is that a part of your motivation?

I don’t really ever think about whether I’m enriching people’s lives. I think part of me finds it inconceivable. Much of my drive and motivation is coming from a terrible black hole of despair and self-criticism that can be crippling. I take so long to make new songs because my standards are unreasonable, and even when I’m finished I’m mostly disappointed with what I’ve done and brace myself for the world to laugh at my efforts. But when someone tells me how much the music means to them, when I meet them in person and hear this, it is enormously gratifying, it is a privilege to play that role in someone’s life.

Much of my drive and motivation is coming from a terrible black hole of despair and self-criticism that can be crippling. Even when I’m finished I’m mostly disappointed with what I’ve done.

Finally, a slightly less serious question. Your music often leaves journalists fumbling for really awkward genre pigeonholes like indie-dance and disco-punk. If you could make up your own genres to describe each of The Juan Maclean’s studio albums, how would you define them?

Oh man, it’s the question that artists like me find the most annoying and often yields the most pretentious bullshit responses along the lines of ‘What I do can’t really be constrained by an genre’. But yeah, what I do defies categorisation.

Juan Maclean plays at The Nest, London, on Saturday September 6th. In A Dream is released on September 14th by DFA Records. Find The Juan Maclean on Facebook, Twitter and SoundCloud.