As the Rush Comes…
A Chance Meeting Connected Gabriel & Dresden. Now As America’s Most In-Demand Remix Team, the Hitmaking Duo Braces for Its Next Phase

By Emily Tan
Photos by Rahav Segev
Published in the July 2004 issue of DJ Times Magazine
Volume 17 - Number 7

     Though both reside in California, Gabriel & Dresden is a marriage made in Miami. In 2001, the duo arrived at Winter Music Conference with very different agendas. They left town having forged the basis of a professional partnership DJs the world over would come to appreciate.
     Gabriel, then representing Mixman Technologies, hit South Beach with ideas of spreading the word about his music-creation tools. He also brought along CDs and newly pressed vinyl of some wildly eclectic original tracks he’d just finished. Dresden, a longtime DJ who lent his A&R skills to CD subscription service Promo Only, was doing some music scouting for influential U.K. radio jock Pete Tong. He heard Gabriel’s deep, techy “Wave 3” and loved it – two weeks later it was on Radio 1. Call it an auspicious start, or simply the beginning of a charmed life.
     When both returned to the West Coast – Dresden to L.A., Gabriel to San Francisco – they began to work together. At that point, Gabriel the electronic musician had the deeper studio chops – he’d earned a BFA in Music Composition from the California Institute of the Arts and attended Holland’s Institute of Sonology, where he studied the structure and composition of electronic music. However, Dresden the DJ knew how to rock a room. His years working as an all-CD jock in Connecticut nightclubs gave Dresden an inherent feel for what worked best on a dancefloor; meanwhile, his A&R tentacles recognized the intangible qualities of a special track. They meshed in the studio and, before long, Gabriel and Dresden mixes were turning up everywhere.
     In the beginning, their sweeping trance mixes for global DJ-artists like Tiësto and Oakenfold landed on a variety of big mix compilations. Soon enough, their melodic sensibilities caught the ears of the major labels. Eventually, they scored mixes for more crossover-oriented acts like Jewel, Deborah Cox, and Annie Lennox. By then, getting the tab to mix the Britney/Madonna collaboration “Me Against the Music” just seemed like a natural progression.
     The past year, Gabriel and Dresden’s career hit overdrive. Recording original music as the group Motorcycle (with vocalist Jes), they gained nearly instant success – their euphoric hit “As The Rush Comes” remains omnipresent. (In New York, it recently ranked No. 2 on WKTU Radio’s “Top Eight At 8” countdown, right behind Usher and ahead of Outkast and Britney Spears.) During Winter Music Conference week in Miami this past March, the three-year anniversary of Gabriel and Dresden’s meeting earned more than a little notice. In fact, it gained official industry sanctions in the form of hardware. They won the DanceStar USA Award for “Best Breakthrough DJs,” plus WMC’s International Dance Music Awards for “Best Producer” and “Best Progressive/Trance Single” (for “As The Rush Comes”). Not a bad week at all.
     A month later, we caught up with Josh Gabriel and Dave Dresden when they hit Manhattan for a tag-team DJ gig at Avalon. By then, Dresden had moved north to the Bay Area to be closer to Gabriel and much more was on the immediate horizon – a mix compilation for Nettwerk America of the songs from the soundtrack of the NIP/TUCK television show, plus the upcoming Motorcycle full-length. Given their digital predilections, they also served as perfect poster boys for our Digital DJ Issue. Here’s how it went.

DJ Times: You guys have been so busy with mixes, I have to ask: Is there an artist or group that you haven’t remixed yet, that you’d like to?
Josh Gabriel: I’d love to remix U2.
Dresden: I’d love to remix U2 as well, but I’d also like to remix Tori Amos or Björk, or work on an original [track] with them. Gwen Stefani is doing a dance album and I’d love to produce a track on that.
Gabriel: You’d have to be a part of the Rolodex of people that they think of at the time that they’re making that record.
DJ Times: I’m looking at the catalog of remixes that you’ve done over the years – including your remixes of Way Out West’s “Mindcircus,” Andain’s “Summer Calling,” Nalin & Kane’s “Beachball,” Tiësto’s “In My Memory” – as well as your artist track as Motorcycle, “As The Rush Comes.” Is there something about proper song construction and vocal choruses that characterize your style?
Gabriel: I definitely think that structure plays a big part. We want to make things feel like songs. People have this idea that dance music can’t be songs. We want it to take you somewhere, and so all of our songs have a dubby, emotional, soulful quality that takes you on a journey, and the structure plays an important part.
Dresden: I said early on, when Josh and I started working, “Let’s not just make records; let’s make the record.” And take a song – especially a remix – and maximize its potential. Hopefully, that correlates to the dancefloor, as well.
Gabriel: There’s always a peak in our tracks, that’s definitely a characteristic of our music. What he means by “maximize” is find the biggest peak that that song can support—whether that’s a house track or a more trance-y track.
Dresden: But, also using all of the available sounds to make a version of a song.
DJ Times: You’ve said that when record companies hire you to do a remix, they usually know what to expect within a reasonable range. True?
Gabriel: I’d say that that’s usually true. Most record companies hire us because of what we do. [Our sound is] dubby, techno-trance, house. We like to bring in elements of house, techno, trance, tribal, electro. We get influenced by all these different records, and we take what we like from them and it just becomes our music. We don’t really distinguish between styles.
Dresden: To me, growing up and becoming a DJ in 1987, there was dance music and there was rock music. Dance music encompassed a whole bunch of different things. When the styles all got changed and turned [into] the rave scene, it was guys going, “I’m only playing breaks.” Or, “I’m only playing techno.” Or, “I only play dubby techno.” I just wanted to play good songs. The music that I started DJing with was quite broad. I wasn’t able to ever distinguish between just being a techno DJ, or being a trance DJ, or being a breaks DJ. Something from all of those genres sounded good to me, even drum-n-bass.
DJ Times: Last night at Avalon [New York], were you playing any vinyl?
Dresden: Nah, I play CDs. I have never, ever played vinyl. In fact, DJ Times did a piece on DJs who spin on CDs in 1992, and I was featured in that article.
DJ Times: Why have you never played vinyl?
Dresden: This is actually the first time I’ve answered this truly, anywhere: I was maimed by the turntable at age seven. The reason why I don’t play vinyl, is ’cause when I was a kid, my parents had a turntable and they had lots and lots of records. It was one of those turntables where you could stack five records onto it so that it would play five different records. I never could figure out how to get that to shut off, and the tone arm was automatic. It was too much stress for me, so I just bought cassette tapes until 1985, and then I was buying CDs. I started DJing in 1987 and I had 200 CDs at that point.
DJ Times: You play on the Pioneer CDJ-1000. Why?
Dresden: I love the freedom. It allows me to do live remixes with the hot-start functions and the looping. It’s definitely a very good live performance piece, and watching what Josh does with Ableton [Live] definitely shows me that the idea of live remixing is definitely where DJing is going. For me, the CDJ-1000 goes hand-in-hand with [the Pioneer] mixer, with the effects. Josh tells me that I’m naked when I don’t DJ with the Pioneer [DJM-600] mixer and the CDJ player.
DJ Times: Josh, what’s your set-up when you DJ?
Gabriel: Ableton [Live] wired into an [M-Audio] FireWire 410 controller into the club mixer. I love the flexibility. I switched over to doing the laptop DJing because I believe in always pushing things forward and because the way in which you do things changes what it is you’re doing. I knew that getting Ableton [Live] and DJing on the computer would change the way I DJ. I’m already doing things that I couldn’t do any other way.
DJ Times: For instance?
Gabriel: For instance, last night, I looped a section of James Holden’s “Nothing (’93 Returning Mix).” I looped the drums and everyone was like, ‘Woo-hoo, this song is coming in!” But what I ended up doing was, while that was looping, I played a whole other song on top of it. And then when that song was over, I went back and started playing the actual James Holden song, so it was this prolonged anticipation. Things like that you can’t do any other way. I’m about to get a USB controller for it. The idea is I can do all sorts of VST effects in real-time on different sounds…
DJ Times: Almost like playing an instrument?
Gabriel: Yeah, so for transitions and stuff, I have access to parameters that I would while I was actually making music.
Dresden: I think that Ableton [Live] leveled the playing field for DJing, in that the art of the DJ for the last 15 years has been about how well you can make kick-beats mix over each other. This allows people who are musically inclined to read a room.
Gabriel: I also think that Ableton Live gives the chance for the bar to be raised. Now, somebody can come in at entry level and do what somebody else would have to spend years on vinyl learning, and they’re going to be able to spend the time that it took the guy to learn to do on vinyl, they’re going to start learning other crazy things that no one can even think of yet! And that’s what’s cool.
Dresden: I’ve gone down to [Winter Music] Conference, I’m going to these little, itty-bitty parties that not a lot of people are going to and seeing how much the laptop has totally revolutionized the DJing field. I almost feel old school for playing CDs.
DJ Times: What do you see as the future of DJing? What piece of equipment and/or software do you envision?
Gabriel: I think that – and this is for any equipment companies that are reading this – I think that the future of DJing is if me and Dave and an engineer get into a room and make a device that basically takes the concepts that I’m thinking about in Ableton and puts them in a performance piece of gear, because a computer is not really at home in a club. You need a piece of gear that people can put CDs into, that’s physically durable, and that they can operate in a more musical fashion. A laptop’s a very un-musical thing.
DJ Times: Are you talking to any equipment manufacturers?
Gabriel: Not yet, but we’d love to have this piece of gear. I’ve learned a lot by watching [Dave] DJ. I have a million ideas for [the Ableton controller], and all of my ideas get modified by watching [Dave] DJ.
DJ Times: Sasha recently told DJ Times that he’s talking to M-Audio about developing a customized DJ-friendly controller specifically to use with Ableton Live.
Dresden: I think that there are people like James Zabiela out there really pushing new ways of DJing that a lot of the older guys are starting to pick up. Everybody’s just getting into the new media now.
DJ Times: Do you think that vinyl is over, then? Is there any benefit to playing vinyl over CD?
Dresden: I’ve grown to appreciate vinyl’s sound quality with a good needle. It is fun to play with records, and it feels cool. It does [affects scratching sound] chtck-chicka, chtch-chicka. You can touch the platter and it’s all very old. I also equate vinyl with playing with a rotary dial phone. Something better has come along than the turntable. Pioneer definitely has been raising the bar every time they make a new unit, like the CDJ-1000.
Dresden: I’m starting to think that the CD is becoming obsolete. I’m definitely not looking at my CDs as being my future. I’m looking at what [Josh] is doing as being my DJ future. I love controlling frequencies, changing things and filtering. That’s what I’ve been doing ever since the Pioneer [DJM] 500 and 600 [mixers], the EFX-500 and the Lexicon Jam Man came out.
DJ Times: Are you going to stay with the CDJ-1000s, or are you going to try to use Ableton Live?
Dresden: Maybe incorporate both. What I want to use hasn’t been made yet. A lot of my creativity comes from on-the-fly things—things that weren’t planned.
Gabriel: I see how Dave plays, and I just can’t see him [DJing] with a computer.
DJ Times: In the recording studio, do you use any analog synths to get your sounds?
Gabriel: No, we don’t use any analog. The only thing that’s really analog that makes it into our mixes is an electric bass [guitar] and obviously, voice.
DJ Times: What about software?
Gabriel: Logic [Audio 6.0] on a Power Mac G5 dual [desktop] rig.
DJ Times: What features specifically in Logic Audio 6.0 are of the most interest to you?
Gabriel: The sound of the effects and the automation. It’s just very musical in the way it operates. Using digital audio doesn’t interrupt my musical thinking.
Dresden: Stacking, compression, and compression on top of compression.
DJ Times: What was your inspiration for “As The Rush Comes,” and what was the process of composing that track?
Dresden: I met Jes in L.A., and she said that she could sing, I said that I could produce. She gave me her card, and I immediately went home and checked out her website. I emailed her and said, “I love your voice.” So, we actually met the next day with her manager and I said, “I make this crazy dance music and I’d love for you to sing on it.”
DJ Times: Did Jes co-write the track with you two?
Dresden: Yeah. Originally, we gave her a track to sing on, so she wrote some words to it. And we recorded it so quickly and effortlessly that we worked on three or four other songs.
Gabriel: “As The Rush Comes” was one of the other songs.
DJ Times: Vic Latino from New York’s WKTU radio got a huge listener response when he first played the radio edit. Did you ever imagine that the song would be this big?
Dresden: I felt good while we were making it and I was having fun with it. I got really excited and I just called all my friends and…then it hit. I never envisioned making a record that would have that far-reaching of an impact. Definitely, getting on the radio is not the first thing that we want to do. At the end of the day when it does get on the radio, it’s very rewarding because it wasn’t made for the radio.
DJ Times: If you created something specifically for radio, would you do anything differently?
Dresden: No. I think that when you worry about how something is going to be embraced, that’s when you start making average music. Dance music is probably the last form of music that I would want to make if I wanted to get on the radio. If I wanted to get on the radio, I’d probably make a rap record. But, I understand the structure of a song for the radio.
Gabriel: I think that our fingerprint is our fingerprint, no matter what we work on.
DJ Times: What’s the title of your new mix CD?
Dresden: We haven’t titled it yet. It will be out on Nettwerk America later this year.
Gabriel: One of the tracks on the CD will be my follow-up to “Wave 3” [an early solo track] titled “Alive.” It’s a special track for me, personally, because it includes recordings of my son Rowan’s fetal heartbeat as part of the background sounds.
DJ Times: I read that you used 100 plug-ins recording “As The Rush Comes.”
Gabriel: I used a lot of plug-ins, yeah.
Dresden: He’s always pushing the limits…
Gabriel: I always end up having to bounce something, because I can’t play what’s on the screen. And I use Logic plug-in synthesizers, so I have samples, and each one’s a different process.
Dresden: It’s a lot of back-and-forth when you’re making music with us. But, that’s part of the fun. Getting a new computer and having all the added processing power, it allows us to even go further with the music.
DJ Times: Josh, tell me how going to see Sasha and Digweed at Twilo in 1999 affected you?
Gabriel: Good that you mentioned it, because it was Jim [Tremayne] who brought me to see Sasha and Digweed at Twilo. Jim basically opened my eyes, ears and mind. My first hearing of dance music was in ’88, ’89, when I was in college [in Holland], and I got exposed to acid-house. And I loved it. I was always into Depeche Mode, Yaz, The Cure, Jean Michel Jarre. When I heard acid house, I was like, “Wow, this is cool!” When I came back to America, I didn’t hear anything like it because I didn’t really understand where to find it. It wasn’t in the “overground.” During a Mixman routine press tour, I met with Jim, and he was like, “We’re gonna go see Sasha and Digweed tonight, if you wanna come.”
DJ Times: Did that experience change your perspective on making music?
Gabriel: Absolutely. It completely made me understanding everything. I was hooked. That planted the seed for me to want to get out and make music. And, it was not until maybe two or three years later that I finally left Mixman [makers of music-creation tools] to go pursue [making] music full-time.
DJ Times: Is Mixman still in existence?
Gabriel: There are still products out there and I’m an adviser and board member.
DJ Times: Of your formal music training, what do you consider to be the most valuable?
Gabriel: It wasn’t classical musical training. Cal Art was a very avant-garde music school. I think that the most important thing I learned there was that I was allowed to play around with new technology. I did pieces where I hooked up a cello player and converted the cellos’ amplitude into voltage and controlled synthesizers in real-time. It just allowed me to explore and experiment with music and technology.
DJ Times: Dave, you don’t have a classical education in music, but you’ve been DJing for 17 years. Can you explain how your real-world experience has led you to where you are now?
Dresden: My training has literally been in the DJ booth. It started in the late-’80s in Connecticut, in a little club that probably no longer exists. I really wanted to be a DJ and Moby played [a venue] called The Café. He was the cool DJ in town that everybody wanted to hang out with. I went to this place when I was 16 or 17 and I was hooked on it. The music that he was playing was Goth and dance and he played some hip-hop and acid-house music, too. Finally, after a year of going to this place and feeling the vibe for the dancing, I finally became a DJ. Moby was like, “If you wanna be a DJ, you’re gonna have to play vinyl. And you’re bopping your head like a DJ, but your mixes don’t come-out right.”
DJ Times: Moby taught you how to DJ?
Dresden: Yeah, and he taught me music theory. Before then, it was all Greek to me. He explained the four-counts to me—that was the most important lesson that anybody had ever taught me. Moby said, “Get two copies of the same song.” So I pulled-out Soul II Soul, and he was like, “Find the same point in the song that’s playing and hit play.” When I heard the two tracks going together, I understood what was going on. Back then, it took a lot longer to learn, because records weren’t made by DJs. Somebody many years later was like, “Hey, you mix great, but you don’t mix keys right.” I didn’t understand. I just thought that as long as the beats matched, that’s fine. So, when they taught me that there’s a method to the madness that really opened the floodgates for me. I was able to start doing live remixes because I had more trust in my abilities.
DJ Times: You’ve remixed Britney Spears’ “Me Against The Music” for Jive Records on an all-powerful Mac G4 laptop while touring Europe, using software like E-Magic’s ES1 soft-synth and Mercury. Have you ever recorded with analog compressors and synths or other high-end equipment, and how do you feel about recording in digital using software versus using analog gear?
Gabriel: When we’re recording, it’s different [from when we remix], because when we record, I use a tube compressor. It definitely gives a nice sound, especially when we’re recording guitar or a voice. Recording in digital versus analog, you can’t reproduce the sound exactly. Do I think that I get more music done having a studio full of digital gear that I can control and have no hassle? Yes! With me, the pleasure is in creating new sounds, and not worrying about the old ones that I may or may not be creating. Out with the old and in with the new, that’s my philosophy. I’m not afraid to not have the warmth of analog. I’d rather figure out something else to do.
DJ Times: Winter Music Conference 2004 was your three-year anniversary. How important was WMC 2004 to you both, considering the awards that you picked-up?
Gabriel: I think [WMC] is important. As a DJ, we did a broadcast for XM Satellite Radio, and we did the DanceStar Awards show. For us, Winter Music [Conference] ended up being more of a publicity thing. Everyone knows it’s turned into a party thing.
DJ Times: Tell me about WMC 2001, when the two of you met for the first time.
Dresden: It was my first year of having a cellphone [laughs], because in order to be a scout for Pete Tong, you’re gonna have to have a cellphone in Miami. I was just going crazy looking for new music. I was also working for Groove Radio at the time, and we did live broadcasts from the top of the Giant Hotel every evening. Leon Alexander from Hope Records was also a DJ. I had been talking to Josh 10 minutes earlier about Mixman software, when I saw him run over to Leon and hand him a record [“Wave 3”] that was really well thought-out. I went up to Josh and found that it was the record he’d been making. We had CD players in the rooms of the hotel, so I ran into the room and popped in the demo Josh had given me, and I was floored by what I heard. I listened to it twice. I ran out and told Josh, “Dude, you just made the bomb record, and you sampled OMD! You are the coolest motherfucker I’ve ever met.”
Gabriel: [laughs]
Dresden: So, I said, “I need to get a copy for Pete [Tong]. He’s gonna be on the boat tomorrow, so if you get me another copy, I’ll get it to him.” Two weeks later, it was on Radio 1. That’s pretty much how we started the relationship.
DJ Times: Dave, do you still produce solo, under the moniker Attention Deficit?
Dresden: Yeah.
DJ Times: And Josh, you also work apart from Dave as part of a group called Andain?
Gabriel: Yeah, and I also do my own stuff, under “Josh Gabriel.”
DJ Times: Tell me how your work together – as Gabriel & Dresden – is different from your work apart.
Dresden: I’ve learned volumes about production from watching Josh. When I work with Ryeland [Allison] as Attention Deficit, I take a lot of the production things that I’ve learned [from Josh].
DJ Times: Dave, you used to work for Promo Only. How did your experience as a club DJ contribute to that job?
Dresden: I was an A&R guy for six or seven years for them doing programming. Promo Only was an extension of my DJing. I wanted to give DJs an opportunity to have all the music that they’d need, be it the hot underground songs that are gonna breakthrough, the remix of the pop song on the radio, or the things they couldn’t buy in the store. I used my experience as being a DJ in the clubs as a proving ground. I always wanted to make life easier for DJs, because when I started, life was not easy for me as a DJ. Now, I get to apply that same ethic to making music. I want to make records that make DJs look good!