Paul's party politics

11 April 2012
The Weekender

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'This is not where the most fortunate Berliners live,' says Paul Van Dyk with typical deadpan understatement. We are driving in his top-of-the-range Mercedes through the Eisenhuttenstadt, which translates as Metal Hut Town, the poor neighbourhood where he grew up. It may be 14 years since German reunification, but the grim faces and decrepit grey housing blocks seem to testify that, for some, this is still very much East Berlin.

Today, Van Dyk is arguably the world's most sought-after DJ. This weekend he plays a huge bank holiday party in London, as well as headlining at several dance festivals throughout the summer. In the past year alone, he has played to nearly three million people, and is the face and soundtrack of a multimillion-pound global ad campaign for Motorola. He also advises senior German politicians on youth-based topics and has set up a pre-school education programme with the Red Cross here in Berlin. Most extraordinary of all, he is fronting the US Government's Rock The Vote campaign to encourage young Americans to participate in democracy. Surely, I ask, his youth in Communist East Germany must now seem like a distant memory?

In fact, the truth is quite the opposite. 'This area is the reason all this happened to me,' he explains. 'It was hard to get hold of pop music when I was growing up. Listening to New Order, the Smiths and early house music made me aware of all this youth culture. Getting hold of the music was a political statement. For someone like me, who was spied on by the secret police at the age of 17 because I had looked into leaving the country, this music seemed so positive, so accepting.'

Van Dyk attaches not just political but an almost spiritual significance to dance music. 'I don't think you could find a Nazi enjoying dance music. To get the most out of it, you have to be open-minded.'

Having thrown himself into the club scene as soon as the Berlin Wall came down in 1989, Van Dyk started DJing professionally at the age of 20, when he landed a spot at legendary Berlin club, Tresor. He dabbled at first with techno, a powerful, percussive style of music that is still very popular in Germany.

But his preferred sound was trance, a combination of pumping beats, soaring strings and dramatic 'breakdowns' - intense, slowed-down crescendos, during which clubbers would stand still and hold their hands blissfully in the air, especially if they'd been taking ecstasy.

Van Dyk has always made his own music. As his DJing profile rose, his abrasive mixture of trance and techno earned him a following that spread around the world when he was picked up by British independent label, Deviant, in 1996. By 1998, ecstasy, trance and 'superclubs' - huge dancing institutions such as Sheffield's Gatecrasher and Liverpool's Cream - were the major forces on the UK club scene and Van Dyk was riding the wave. Back then, the sight of 4,000 people, all facing him in the DJ box, staring intensely, was a regular spectacle. And by releasing the single 'For An Angel' - still an essential inclusion in any trance DJ's record box - he confirmed his status as the king of trance.

By 2001, a backlash had begun in the UK against trance, superclubs and 'corporate clubbing'. Partly because of this, he has played here only occasionally since then, although always to large, sold-out crowds. Now, although he lives in West Berlin, he has travelled the rest of the world extensively, building up an especially loyal fanbase in the US.

But it was while DJing in India that Van Dyk's horizons changed. 'I saw terrible poverty in India and decided that giving to charity wasn't enough. It made me change my approach to my career. A real artist is someone who sees the things around him and incorporates them into his art.'

As well as supporting a young people's charity in India, Van Dyk has been chosen to appear on TV and in live performances all over the US as one of the faces of the Rock The Vote Campaign - the first non-American to do so. The organisation was set up when it was revealed that more than 20 million young Americans are not registered to vote. 'I grew up in a country that was anything but democratic, which makes me passionate about it,' says the DJ, who played to 1.5 million Americans last year.

What about his own politics? 'It would be inappropriate for me to be involved in American politics, but I'm very happy to encourage people to be part of the democratic process,' he says, diplomatically. Unable to resist a little dig at American foreign policy, he adds, 'If they're going to put their country in the position of being the world's police, the least we can expect is that they pick the right chief of police.'

Back home, too, Van Dyk's influence goes beyond the clubs. He has written the theme for a film about West Germany's 1954 victory over Hungary in the World Cup in Bern, Switzerland. The song, 'Wir Sind Wir' ('We Are Who We Are'), is inspired by the first major tournament Germany had been allowed to play since the Second World War. The win was very important to German morale and is referred to as The Miracle Of Bern. Any hint of nationalism is controversial in modern Germany, but for Van Dyk, this song is a point of principle.

'I want to find a way for us to celebrate being German. It was a great day when our team came out of nowhere and beat the Hungarians in the final. It was a wonderful thing for us to stop punishing ourselves for a bit and be proud of something.' He adds, revealing the turmoil that still exists deep inside the German psyche, 'Of course, we should still be punished for what happened during the war.' As we drive past the Kaiser Wilhelm Church, bombed by the Allies and preserved in its partially destroyed state as a reminder of the horrors of war, he concludes with a touch of melancholy, 'There can never be enough punishment.'

He has just released a highly successful album. He has millions of fans. He may even affect the result of the next US election. But even for this extraordinary man - the first-ever DJ-philanthropist - making Germans feel good about themselves is the challenge of a lifetime.

Paul Van Dyk headlines Seriousworld, Sun 30 May, 9pm-7am, Canvas, York Way, N1 (08705 344 444). Paul Van Dyk will also be appearing at Homelands, Creamfields and Godskitchen Global Gathering festivals this summer (see Festival Guide, page ix for details).

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