Timo Maas, as they so often say about lesser talents in the dance music field, needs no introduction. By now, nearly every club DJ has been touched by his work, which, of course, seems to touch on every form of dance music – from techno and trance to breaks and house. And as was the case with that other great genre-splitting act Basement Jaxx, the world outside the global club sandbox has taken notice of the German DJ/producer and full-on pop acceptance could be the next development. Judging by Maas’ logic, it wouldn’t be so far fetched. After all, he’s already got dancefloors from Berlin to Brooklyn rocking to whatever beat he’s feeling at the moment.

But as every DJ knows, this sort of success never comes easy, and for Maas, it’s been two decades since his first gig in the northern German city of Hanover. Starting his professional career as a resident DJ at a gay bar during the early ’80s, Maas eventually worked his way up to winning the Friday residency at The Tunnel further north in Hamburg. Between this gig and a day job as a mobile phone salesman, Maas eventually made his first single – the aggressive trance stormer “Die Herdplatte” – with The Tunnel’s other resident DJ Gary D.

After that track gained notice, he hooked up with three very important people: Leon Alexander (founder of U.K. trance label Hope Recordings and his current manager) and the combo of Martin Buttrich and Andy Bollesohn (twin engineers of Germany’s Peppermint Jam studios), who assisted Maas on a subsequent run of classic tracks throughout the ’90s. And whether it was the tribal thump of Orinoko’s “Mama Konda,” the spooky breakbeat of Mad Dogs’ “Better Make Room” or the near-suicidal trance momentum of “Ubik,” Timo and team at once defined and transcended each genre they took on.

Of course, it was the trail-blazing remix of Azzido Da Bass’ “Doom’s Night” that broke worldwide and became as epochal a moment in dance music’s history as Beltram’s “Energy Flash” or Wink’s “Higher State of Consciousness.” (Heck, it even funked up a recent Michelin Tires television ad.) Emulated by producers and DJs worldwide, it led to remix offers by Madonna, Fatboy Slim and Placebo.

And now, it leads up to his artist LP, Loud (Kinetic), which should firmly cement Maas’ place in the pantheon of dance music luminaries worldwide. As he has done so often in his career, Maas covers all the bases, from pristine techno (“Manga”) to stoned downtempo (“Hash Driven”) and Chemical Brothers-oriented rock (the U.K. smash “To Get Down”). It clearly fulfills Maas’ early promise to bring German techno in line with international pop and rock traditions, and shows even more ground to cover in the future.

As a DJ, Maas likes to mix it up as well, keeping the energy taut and the groove constant through his sets. Like his recorded output, Maas’ sets are basically techno, but he’s managed to find an aesthetic within the sound that allows him to maneuver the set wherever he so chooses.

DJ Times recently hooked up with Timo Maas, one of the world’s most in-demand DJ/producers, and discussed his history, his intuitions, his skills and his successes.

DJ Times: What came first for you, producing or DJing?

Maas: I’ve DJed nearly 20 years and I’m on my way to be 33, so I’m celebrating 20 years in September. I think a very logical thing at some point was not to play just the other people’s music. It was your forum to do your own definition of the music as well and I started playing around the end of the 1980s or so and released the first record in 1994, but for me, it was just a logical thing. My star sign is Leo and a Leo always wants to go forward, go to the next level. It doesn’t matter what direction in life, and it was the same with the music as well. It just felt like, “OK, DJing is cool. It’s a lot of fun. This is my passion. This is my love, but let’s make it a little more personal and make some records as well.”

DJ Times: What music did you start with as a DJ?

Maas: You can just imagine. It was back in 1982, so I played everything. Early ’80s stuff, I played everything from Simple Minds to Stiff Little Fingers, from punk rock to pop-rock to the dance music that existed at the time. I’m a child of the ’80s, music-wise. I grew up with that kind of music. The DJ culture, which exists right now, didn’t exist at all at this time, especially north on the countryside in Germany, where I’m from.

DJ Times: How did you work your way up?

Maas: I was doing monthly mix show reels, just my actual style for the month. I’ve been doing it for a little bit more than 16 years now. Through my whole musical career, I’ve given out thousands of tapes for free to promoters, to friends, to fans. I still do that when I’ve got some with me. I’m nearly always prepared to give these things out. I know that the people are listening to the stuff, and the bigger your name is, the more they take care of this tape or CD. It was a really important and integral part of going to the next step as well. In those years, I was sending out tapes and CDs to promoters and some of them never listened to the stuff. Some of them did and, because of these tapes, I was getting some gigs as well. The thing with The Tunnel club, I was working on getting the resident DJ there to my small club where I was playing in my home area and it worked out. He heard my set and he said, “Timo, I have to invite you to The Tunnel club in Hamburg. You’re fucking brilliant.” And after just one gig over there, I was getting the job of the resident DJ on Friday over there, which was amazing because I couldn’t really remember what I was playing. I was too pissed on Jägermeister.

DJ Times: In some ways, you also had the advantage of being at the right place at the right time, like DJing in the ’80s before the U.K. rave explosion.

Maas: When I started there was no DJ culture at all, so I’ve seen everything growing, and I made a decision around ’95 that I wanted to play outside Germany, because I wasn’t really getting a kick from the German scene. It entered into a direction music-wise that I didn’t want to support. Like I said, I’m a countryside person – it was quite difficult to find jobs where you could play the music you really loved to play. So I was lucky enough and motivated enough to try and get gigs in England. I was sending out demo tapes of this old trance record I did in ’95, “Die Herdplatte.” I sent a couple of records and tapes out in the summer of ’95 and by the end of the day, I had two gigs over there. One of them was at Le Coulter in Bristol where my now-manager Leon Alexander was the promoter of the club and he was booking me there. He was listening to the record and was like, “What the fuck is that?” He was trying to get in touch with me for three or four weeks for my phone number. But he was bilingual, as well. He was able to speak German, which made the whole thing easier. And he invited me. I played there, rocked the club and invited me to do a bimonthly residency at Le Coulter for three and a half years. And it was just absolutely great. It was so different, what was going on in England. I was learning a lot.

DJ Times: How did that relationship help you?

Maas: Basically, he and myself were responsible when the first Timo Maas record coming out on Le Coulter Recordings. And everything came together step by step on a really natural basis for the last six or seven years. This is the time that I’m working internationally. So it’s not this overnight success. There’s a lot of work behind it. There’s a lot of energy that we invested. There’s a lot of experience that you have to make to reach a certain level like that. Two years ago, when Leon and myself were in New York the first time, we were sharing a single room in the cheapest hotels. And we made it. By the first tour, at the end of the day, it brought me very little money, but a lot of experience. I was fucked up as I was never before, because America is such a big country. If you’re driving one and a half or two hours, like in Germany, you’re in the next city where you can play when you’re touring, but [in the U.S.] you have to fly always. Especially on the first couple of tours, you’re partying like an animal and the end of the week you look like 45 years of age. By the end of the day, it’s allgood, but it’s very tiring. You just have to fight against a lot.

DJ Times: What did you learn from your first residency?

Maas: I’m a typical resident DJ. I had to resident a club in Hanover, which is not much to mention, but I was playing there for nearly 10 years on a basis of twice a month. It was a gay club in Hanover called The Man’s Factory – for me, one of the best clubs in Germany, definitely. I wasn’t just playing for gays. I was playing for a mixed crowd. Gays are always a little bit more up for it and up for partying. They don’t just stay in the corner and aren’t too shy to dance. They’re more extroverted. They’re just a little more open-minded, and when they party, they party. As a resident DJ, it’s up to you on a weekly or a biweekly basis as to how the music is going to be, how the crowd is going to be. It was a big experience for me to work my own crowd, to attract my own people, to play sets and play around with stuff that may be a little bit unusual. The Tunnel was my first real techno residency. And what can I say? Experience, experience, experience. Every gig you’re doing, you’re learning more. It’s still like that.

DJ Times: You made your first single, “Die Herdplatte,” with the other resident DJ at The Tunnel club, Gary D. How did that come about?

Maas: I had a little equipment, but nothing really worth mentioning. For me, it was always important to find someone who can change my ideas into music. I was a DJ and I had ideas that I didn’t really know how to work out. I didn’t have the money to afford equipment where I could do OK tracks or proper tracks, so I was looking out for one of those guys, and there are enough out there who have musical ideas, but have no connection to the scene. Finally, I found one of the best in the world, Martin Buttrich. We’re still partners. Apart from three records, we did everything together. There was another person, Andy Bollesohn. He left one and a half years ago.

DJ Times: So how do you two work in the studio nowadays?

Maas: It’s kind of a typical thing. Martin is this 24/7 studio man. He’s always in the studio working on different things, working on Timo Maas or on some other stuff. And I’m the DJ coming with my vibe, especially with my records under my arms and say, “This is the next trend to go. I’ve got this and that idea.” I try to explain it, sing him some melodies if it’s necessary. He doesn’t really like it because I can’t really sing well. After the six and a half years that we’ve known each other, we know what direction the music should go. We talk about the basic things, the point on which we kind of think the same. And Martin’s just programming the songs and changing the ideas into music. He’s just absolutely amazing at that. Soundwise, he doesn’t sound like anyone else. He’s always just a little bit better than the others.

DJ Times: When you play out, what DJ gear do you prefer?

Maas: The mixer is always the center of your act and I really like the Pioneer because of the ease of use and the effects. I really like the DJM-600 because you can control the volume of your effects, as well with the DJM-500. It’s just got these 6-cm. faders. It’s got the EQs. It’s got a good gain. I don’t really use crossfaders that much, so they aren’t really important. And it’s got a really good effects unit in there as well. The mixer sounds really good.

DJ Times: How long do you like to play? And do you change your set from country to country?

Maas: No, not anymore. Sure, I take care, if I play on a rave, which I’m not doing that often. At raves, I take a little bit more care that I’m not playing too strange or anything like that. In a club, I never play the same set. I sort my box out with the new stuff I’m getting with new stuff that I’m getting over the week and buying over the week. I still go record shopping every week. I can’t really tell you what my highlights or what kind of sound I’m playing. My DJ tastes are wide. That’s why the album Loud is as diverse as it is. I don’t like it when people try to pigeonhole my music. The thing that holds the Timo sets together is funk. It’s funk. It’s good-sounding records. And as for the rest of the sets, it’s quite diverse. Sometimes I play more breaks, sometimes I play a little bit more trancey, especially around October, November, December, because these are the darkest and most frustrating months of the year. I reflect how I feel. Around December, I feel not so much depressed, but it’s such a dark, grey month. I play a darker, more techy sound. But honestly, I don’t play faster than 132 BPM at the moment. It’s not about the speed, but about the funk in the movement. It’s diverse enough. Just this one gig in January at a friend’s birthday party in Germany, I played there for free, basically, to support him a little bit, because he did a lot of things for me in the past. And for a lot of people that night it was a big smack in their face. So many people came after the set and said, “Timo, I’ve never heard a DJ playing music like that. What is this?” I said, “Funk, with a little bit of spliff in between!” What is it? I think it’s just the music I love. I’m using records as tools. I’m not using big records. I’m using records as tools. I play big records, but I use them as tools as well. The whole thing is that this is about is creating your own sound.

DJ Times: How did you approach the album?

Maas: We – and I’m speaking again about Martin and me – we reached a really good level in remixing. We’ve done the big names in the world, like Madonna. So we reached a top level with that. And we did a couple of singles. Azzido Da Bass was there as well, which was one of the most important club records. And we’ve reached a certain level. We were thinking, “OK, singers are there as well. We’ve done something, which is different enough and cool enough.” We’ve had a lot of props from the scene, but we’re always thinking, “What is coming next? What could possibly be the next level?” We were both sure that we had to produce an artist album. Everyone in the scene has heard at least of my name. I don’t know if they’ve heard me as a DJ, but that’s not the most important thing. They’ve heard my name and they’ve heard Azzido Da Bass and maybe this or that remix, but the real interpretation of sound the real identification was not there. This was the main reason why we said, “Let’s produce an album, and let’s do something which has bollocks enough, that it’s a typical thing for us.” It’s diverse enough. And it shows. You never know what’s coming next. You know when you see a Timo Maas remix, they’ll know if it’s something like the Kelis single, a full vocal housey thing or Azzido Da Bass or if it’s just a techno remix or a combination of everything. And we thought, “Come on, let’s try to make something which has got the vibe of a proper album. Let’s go away from the typical ‘We-are-the-heroes-of-the-world-prop-DJs’ style.” Nearly everyone in all the interviews I’ve done and friends say, “Man, I expected something else.” Everyone has said this. They didn’t know what they expected.

DJ Times: You’ve also been moving into the rock realm as well, with “To Get Down,” which kinda has a Chemical Brothers feel to it.

Maas: But it’s still typical Timo. It’s still got that kick drum in your ass. We’ve had some really good club tracks as well, but when we come with another club track like “Ubik No. 3” or anything like that, we got a lot of props, but it is not what we want. We want always when we do something, when we invest a lot of time and passion and sweat and blood and stuff into something like we’ve done for the album, we have to come with something which is typical of us, but is unusual, something which is an ass-kick and fresh enough as well as different enough that’s got the interest of the people. And afterwards, hopefully people are buying the album as well, because they think, “Fucking hell, what is he going to do on the album?”

DJ Times: Was it any stretch to make songs for Finley Quaye and Kelis?

Maas: Honestly? Not really. You’re using the same recipe. When you’re hearing the backing of a Kelis track [“Help Me”], the backing of the track was really cool, really vibey, but not that difficult to produce. It is just about the vibe that you’re creating. It is about having the right ideas at the right moment and transporting the vibe that you’re having into a song. Let’s say, especially you mentioned Kelis and Finley as well, for both of them, it’s very unusual as well. It’s unusual for us; it’s unusual for the artists. So we are not jumping on the train of success of someone else. We’re doing something, which is unusual for all parties. And this is the exciting thing, doing something and just learning after a couple of months that this thing can be good as well.

DJ Times: Was that sampled, the horn section behind Kelis?

Maas: It’s a [Bernard Hermann] sample from an old film, “The Day the Earth Stood Still.” It’s an old B-movie from the 1950s. Martin came over with some film music and I said, “Wow, that sounds fucking great. Shall we do a track for the album out of that?” We were talking about it and, by the end of the day, he had everything prepared. He’s always like that. He’s got a lot of time in the studio, so he’s always searching. He plays me that and I give him the direction to go. With the Kelis thing, I gave him the go-ahead. This is how we work. Take the second track, the “Manga” track with the crazy techno noise in the beginning – this “woup-woup-woup,” fucked-up sound. Martin was going through a couple of samples he had on this CD. I had just come into the studio in the morning and the sound was there and I said, “Fucking hell, this is a track.” He said, “Listen to the other stuff,” and I said, “No! Let’s create a track around this noise. This is so fucked-up. This is exactly the sort of thing that works in a club.” And this is how we work. It’s just an extremely vibey thing.